You may be infected with the w32.dumm.b455 virus

[KristopherWalken]

look at the name of the virus very close.

yeah, i was wondering if it meant something. i havent figured out what it means but i'm sure its a joke. he said he couldnt post the list of symptoms even though he got the list via email. i guess copy/paste would be too hard.

 

[discussion]

i'd hasten to guess that around 75% of people's computesr are infected with viruses, trojans, backdoors or spywares. And it's not just people dl'ing programs from kazaa. Viruses come from ie pages, email programs, java applets, legit programs with spyware, etc. etc.

and yes 95% of those people DON'T know they're infected. Today's backdoors and viruses are compeltely stealth. Meaning hackesr now are so good, that they can check out your system, use it for trafficking porn and hosting porn files, use bandwidth, etc. w/o u even noticing it.

-= nav =-

usually a personal firewall will prevent most kiddie hackers

 

[kidvilla]

w32.dumm.b455 doesn't exist

w32.dumm.b455 doesn't exist... or else i would know about it (i work in the industry).

a joke, but in today's day and age, with most people relatively unknowing of the function and codification of auto-virii, script and network hacks, not a nice joke because far too many people here might actually believe it ....

a rule of thumb (99% of the time you will be ok if you remember this)...

- simple data files cannot infect your computer (a data file is like a JPG, a GIF, an MP3, an AVI)

- some complex, and scripted datafiles could infect your system because of the secondary scripts (eg macros) they run.... ( word files, doc files, wma files, vbs files).... usually most programs which would open them (MS word) have a place where you can set the security to high... this should be enough. for video files, the danger is they will launch a website which could transmit a script.... because of this, you should always set your browser to high security whenever you want to watch porn, or at least disconnect from the damn internet!

- unix , mac, and windows systems are notoriously poor at protecting against network attacks... the most common is the buffer overflow (sending it data it can't deal with thus causing it to crash, and no, it doesn't mean sending too much data, but rather sending special characters which cause crashes in the host).... the best way to defend against this is NOT a software firewall (i can bypass one in 15 seconds), but rather a hardware firewall or one of those "DSL routers", because the router's firewalling software is exceedingly hard to tamper with (and ask any tech, they all hate software firewalls).

- in windows, insure that your system isn't hiding the "TRUE" extension of a file .... lots of script kiddies like to send you an executable, but wrap it with a JPEG icon and add a jpeg extension so you will think it's a picture...... this is very common practice, and in my opinion, windows should never hide extensions anymore because of this

(trust me, it can be more complex, but this will work for most folks)

if all that is too complicated, ill simplify it further:
1. music, and pictures are ok
2. word, doc, and movies are ok if you don't connect to the net
3. get a personal router
4. turn on extensions in windows
5. antivirus will save your bacon 99% of the time, so use it


if you do this, your risk of catching a virus will be lower than catching one from the food you eat ...

 

[kidvilla]

additional information

http://antivirus.about.com/library/blext.htm
i like this page, it explains it well

http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/windows/showexte/index
this one has pictures

http://www.vmyths.com/
learn about virus hoaxes

 

[Code]

Re: w32.dumm.b455 doesn't exist

- unix , mac, and windows systems are notoriously poor at protecting against network attacks... the most common is the buffer overflow (sending it data it can't deal with thus causing it to crash, and no, it doesn't mean sending too much data, but rather sending special characters which cause crashes in the host).... the best way to defend against this is NOT a software firewall (i can bypass one in 15 seconds), but rather a hardware firewall or one of those "DSL routers", because the router's firewalling software is exceedingly hard to tamper with (and ask any tech, they all hate software firewalls).

500 bucks if you can bypass my software firewall.
No, make that an even thousand USD.

216.20.237.120

Good luck skriptvilla.

 

[jnuts]

Code - are you using a Linux based firewall? I'm not too crazy with the firewall on my router and would like some more granularity with the settings and reporting/logging.

 

[p0ink]

i remember when rootshell.com was 'the bomb'

 

[FatStoner]

HIGHLY UNLIKELY!

since i changed to a mac (a powerbook to be precise), viruses and crashing computers have become a thing of the past

MACS ROCK! not one crash since install. not one. and it runs like a wet dream!

 

[Code]

Code - are you using a Linux based firewall? I'm not too crazy with the firewall on my router and would like some more granularity with the settings and reporting/logging.

That particlar machine is running IPtables with a very custom set of nagios plugins to facilitate off-site logging.

IPtables will give you total control of all apsects. But you could also get a super cheap, super powerful embsd firewall.
http://embsd.sourceforge.net/

 

[satchboogie]

do any of you recommend any other anti-virus programs other than norton?

thanks