Posted by Youssef Ismail on December 3, 2009 at 10:54 PM
I wanted to let the other photographers here that there might be a possible virus going around in an email that claims they are a marketing research firm "Evans Research" that claims they are conducting a survey for Adobe. It has a link to click on and promises those who take the survey will be entered in a drawing for some pretty nice equipment.
I never take these seriously and never click on the link. But I typed the link into my browser and went to the site. Something strange happened and McAfee alerted me that some program was trying to modify the registry. I did not allow it, but then my computer started acting funny. It now won't boot up. I am now in the process of restoring my boot drive from an disk clone I made a few weeks ago.
So if you get such an email just delete it immediately.
Posted by Barb Hansen on December 4, 2009 at 5:11 AM
Thanks for the info Youssef........ and for what its worth I agree completely with Fred, I've had all kinds of porblems over the years with either Mcafee or Norton. In all most 2yrs we have had no such problems with Trend Micro.
These kinds of 'social engineering' e-mail messages with links to fraudulent/malicious sites are, unfortunately, becoming far too common. They can get past e-mail virus protection because they do not contain any malicious code. They prey upon our desires and/or needs. I find it disgusting.
I receive these all the time. They claim to be from banks, delivery services such as FedEx, the IRS, or simply an e-card. I never click links and immediately give these messages the one-finger salute.
I use the free version of AVG anti-virus software and it has been very, very good. I have used both Norton and McAfee in the past and have found them to be resource hogs that did more harm than good. I will never use them again. I also do regular scans with an app called MalWareBytes. It is free, as well, and will detect not only key loggers, and other junk, it will also detect and remove root kits, which can wreck havoc with a system.
Vigilance is the key.
-P
Posted by Steve Neff on December 4, 2009 at 8:39 PM
I use the free version of AVG as well and like it a lot. I don't do Norton or McAfee either. I've used MalWareBytes and it seemed pretty good. My computer guy put me on to the free version of SUPERAntiSpyware. My computer guy [a computer genius] has never steered me wrong.
I use SUPERAntiSpyware several times a day to scan because I also use this laptop for my job as I can't afford to be down. It's been very good thus far.
Discussion
4 repliesI never take these seriously and never click on the link. But I typed the link into my browser and went to the site. Something strange happened and McAfee alerted me that some program was trying to modify the registry. I did not allow it, but then my computer started acting funny. It now won't boot up. I am now in the process of restoring my boot drive from an disk clone I made a few weeks ago.
So if you get such an email just delete it immediately.
I receive these all the time. They claim to be from banks, delivery services such as FedEx, the IRS, or simply an e-card. I never click links and immediately give these messages the one-finger salute.
I use the free version of AVG anti-virus software and it has been very, very good. I have used both Norton and McAfee in the past and have found them to be resource hogs that did more harm than good. I will never use them again. I also do regular scans with an app called MalWareBytes. It is free, as well, and will detect not only key loggers, and other junk, it will also detect and remove root kits, which can wreck havoc with a system.
Vigilance is the key.
-P
I use SUPERAntiSpyware several times a day to scan because I also use this laptop for my job as I can't afford to be down. It's been very good thus far.