Shortest time to infect a computer?

[ColinJ]

I think my niece has broken the record for infecting a new computer with malware! She got a laptop for Christmas and was told to install the anti-virus software provided before connecting to t'interweb but apparently the lure of Facebook/iTunes etc. was too great and she went straight online. As a result, the machine was taken over by Boxing Day!

The malware took over her browser and was supposedly doing virus checks and finding trojans, worms, keyloggers etc.

I was given the task of sorting it out.

The invader was in at a low level which prevented me doing a lot of the things that I'd normally do to sort out such a problem, but I managed to boot into Safe Mode and restore the machine back to its factory state. I've uploaded all the latest updates and installed the a/v software. All hunky dory now, and that's one January birthday present that I don't have to buy - she got 5 hours of my time instead!

The other thing that I discovered was that their wireless internet connection was very unreliable. My sister had been given a replacement router by Talk Talk but the problem remained. I sussed what was going on when I noticed the connection drop when the phone rang! It turned out that her cordless phone was using the same channel as the wireless internet connection. I found out how to change the channel used by the router and altered it from 1 to 11 and there is now a good, solid connection.

I'm in everyone's good books now!

Did anybody else have festive computer problems?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I think my niece has broken the record for infecting a new computer with malware! She got a laptop for Christmas and was told to install the anti-virus software provided before connecting to t'interweb but apparently the lure of Facebook/iTunes etc. was too great and she went straight online. As a result, the machine was taken over by Boxing Day!

Never ever give anyone a Windows PC to use that doesn't have AV on it. Ever.

 

[fossyant]

Yes - Nephew has now trashed his netbook - even screwed up the recovery partition, so can't 'factory' reset it. It doesn't have a CD, and nor do I have a USB one, so told him to take it to the local PC shop - I've spend 30-40 hours this last year fixing his damage. He is the very same nephew that keeps breaking his mum's PC - until we've password locked him out.

Royal pain in the ar$e. He keeps doing it by using torrent downloads, and file sharing to get football matches - when he really doesn't understand what he's clicking on !

My mate has a step son who keeps doing the same, although in mom's eyes he's not breaking it - big tension in the family over that. !

I'm due another babysitting session though !

 

[Garz]

Nothing worse than being the techie in the family, I have the same problems when I get lumbered with the usual 'can you fix my computer'.

After a while I realised it just is a time sink to fix the problems not that cannot do them. I have now trickled this down to the family members as it is irritating to keep being lumbered with it.

Education seems to be lacking at a young age of appreciating these gadgets, the youngsters seem to take computers for granted nowadays.

Well done for being patient Colin!

 

[ColinJ]

Never ever give anyone a Windows PC to use that doesn't have AV on it. Ever.

I agree!

 

[ColinJ]

I'm still using Win XP on my laptop and desktop! When Microsoft finally stop supporting it, I'll probably switch over to Linux.

I use the free version of AVG on the laptop and the free version of Avast on my desktop. I don't seem to have any problems but that is probably because I keep everything updated and am pretty careful what I load onto my machines.

 

[coffeejo]

I use avast as well, alongside Malwarebytes, CCleaner and IObit.

 

[Norm]

Did anybody else have festive computer problems?

Not a problem, almost the exact opposite of a problem, in fact, as we've just changed to cable broadband.

Although I'm in the middle of the Thames Valley, we're about 8km from the exchange so the theoretical fastest we can get through "normal" broadband providers is 1mbps, although I've never had more than 0.5mbps. That's not hugely faster than dial-up, and even that only came from a technology change about 4 years ago, before that, dial-up was the only option.

Anyway, as of Thursday morning, the access we were getting was along the lines of...

... which is, apparently, slower than 94% of GB. That's so slow that YouTube videos need buffering time, even at 240pixels. iPlayer wouldn't work and even the small videos on the BBC news site would time out.

The Virgin men turned up on Thursday morning, exactly at the time arranged, and set us up with new TV and phone and said that the modem would take a few hours to initialise. Nothing had happened by 5pm so, with fear and trepidation at their fearsome reputation, I called the Virgin customer support line. They have been absolutely excellent, though, on engineer came out yesterday and changed the modem, tested the line and confirmed that there was a line fault, another engineer came out this afternoon and fixed the line, so that's 2 engineers who have come out in 48 hours, the second of which was not only on a Saturday afternoon but was on a Saturday afternoon which was New Year's Eve.

The result of this change is...

... so we've gone from slower than 94% of GB to faster than 93% of GB.

 

[ColinJ]

Not a problem, almost the exact opposite of a problem, in fact, as we've just changed to cable broadband.

...

... so we've gone from slower than 94% of GB to faster than 93% of GB.

Result!

 

[fossyant]

Nice result there.

Windows has to be protected - we kept telling my nephew to put AV on, so we don't know what he did. Most of the virus stuff comes down the file sharing routes - big kids use this lots. If you are just doing club penguin, CBBC etc, then not an issue, but bigger kids - watch. Keep them off data crucial PC's ! They also click pop ups, so best educating them to use Firefox with a popup/ad blocker - makes a huge difference - bin IE !

 

[Yellow Fang]

I think my niece has broken the record for infecting a new computer with malware! She got a laptop for Christmas and was told to install the anti-virus software provided before connecting to t'interweb but apparently the lure of Facebook/iTunes etc. was too great and she went straight online. As a result, the machine was taken over by Boxing Day!

I am surprised you can get viruses from iTunes and Facebook.

 

[Norm]

I am surprised you can get viruses from iTunes and Facebook.

I don't think the Apple Empire would distribute anything too dodgy (although I'm sure that someone will use Google to prove me wrong ) but some of the Facebook apps and fake-links are decidedly dodgy.

That said, though, I took Colin's post to be that Faecebook and itunes were what initially lured his niece online before properly securing the machine rather than the actual source of the malware.

 

[ColinJ]

I am surprised you can get viruses from iTunes and Facebook.

*Cough*

The teenager in question claimed to have only visited a few sites, including those two. My point was that the lure of them distracted said teen from the task in hand - installing the a/v software. The only reason that her boyfriend didn't do it for her was because he'd already wrapped the laptop for her Christmas present.

 

[rusky]

Create their account as a restricted user!

 

[ColinJ]

Create their account as a restricted user!

I spent a whole day fixing the PC of a friend whose teenage sons had riddled it with nasties from various dodgy porn sites ... (Their history lists made interesting reading!)

I set her up as administrator and explained that she was in charge of what was installed from then on. Within 2 weeks, the machine was infected again. I asked how that had happened and she told me that the boys had complained that they couldn't install anything so she told them her password ...

She is on her own now!