Thursday, January 12, 2006

My day with viruses

It all started when I reinstalled the Windows-XP OS in my laptop yesterday. I did not have a proper boot disk to format the primary sector so I went on to install the Windows XP Pro SP2 software atop the already existing and error prone Windows XP FD Professional(a third party release). Lot of the primary sector space was lost in the process(which was recovered on following certain simple procedures), The problem arose when I installed AVG 7.0 trail anti-virus and was searching google for some free key-generator s/w's.
The search showed some websites:

www.seriall.com (the most dangerous)
www.asta-killer.com
www.crackspider.net

I was aware of the danger in merely visiting these sites, but carelessness got the better of me and I continued to browse freely; as a result numerous spywares, several dangerous adwares and viruses got on to the newly installed and still unprotected operating system. The resident Windows firewall was unable to block them as it provided only partial security. The battle is still going on but I'm nowhere near winning. I had to use several anti-virus and anti-spyware softwares to get a partial result.

Affects of the spywares and viruses on the system:

1. One particular spyware spawned the browser and no search process is supported.
2. A huge marquee-scroll comes up on the top of the screen every half an hour warning me of virus.
3. The system shuts down automatically if any anti-virus is running.
4. Even Agnitum outpost 3.0(the best known firewall) is cheated into thinking that several malicious programs were legal ones.
5. System slowdown.
6. Internet explorer gets struck.
7. Funny screen savers come out even if you are working.
8. The notepad opens up automatically and "The user is trying to close some applications with no luck" is typed automatically and is prompted to be saved.
9.The broadband internet connection is always heavy with traffic.

Anti-virus and firewall softwares* I used and extent of their abilities:

1. AVG free edition 7.0: Showed just 3 spyware programs, but failed to clean them.
2. AVG professional edition 7.0.338(the latest available): Showed 15 spyware and adware programs, cleared some spywares but left the Adwares. Showed that the risk levels of all the adwares were very high.
3. Agnitum outpost firewall 3.1 with spyware detector: not too effective, managed to clear out some instances of spywares which reappeared no sooner it had cleaned them.
4. Mc Afee antivirus : I had an older version so I could not use it.
5. Microsoft AntiSpyware beta: Detected just one spyware and cleand it, but could not detect several other instances of other spywares.
6. Sunbelt CounterSpy: Its a dedicated spyware remover. It was the best among all tried softwres, Managed to clear many of the spywares and adwares except 3 dangerous ones.
7. Norton internet security 2006 with latest updates: Pointed out the same spywares and adwares as CounterSpy, failed to remove or quarantine them. The norton internet database says that the adwares are recently diagonised and counter measures are bound to come up.

* All the softwares listed above were used with the latest available updates.

Now, on the advice of a software expert, I cleaned the registry of the malicious programs and am running Norton AntiVirus scan in Safe Mode. If this does not work I'll just have to use Seagate Disk Manager to clean the hard disk and reinstall the OS along with disk partitions, that implies loss of all the valuable data in the laptop, which I'm not favouring to risk. So I'll go on trying to remove the viruses.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

A change indeed....


When I was waiting for a change
When I was short of something
One turn of my head changed it all
made me realise what I was missing all along...

A bitter conflict arose
between my mind and heart.
The mind had just given in…
For once in my life the heart had won.

The victory meant one thing-
The poor thing had to abandon me.
My eyes would follow suit
whenever they spot you.

How I long to be with you.
The jingles in your voice
makes me treasure those moments for ever.
The world looks the same no longer.


-Myself

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

The best ever New Year party

Had a gala time on the night of 31st. A huge party....a big cake....dances....pops....drinks and all as a farewell to a well spent year.
Tee..hee....I danced for the first time in my life.