Virgin - Infected with Malware letter
Discussion
Hi All
Has anyone else had one of these letters from Virgin about a device using my connection being infected with malware?
I've had a few emails and two letters now saying one of my devices is infected with Malware.
I've scanned both main computers (full scans) with Windows defender and nothing found. I've scanned my laptop with Windows defender and nothing found.
The mobile phones all have play protect or equivalent on. I've phoned virgin about this and the lady on the phone had no idea what to do as she had never come across this situation.
She put a note on my account showing that I had scanned everything and everything was clear.
I have virgin webprotect on, I have malware protection through my router as well as the built in Windows options and the mobiles are virus free, so I don't know what else to do!
Thanks
James
Has anyone else had one of these letters from Virgin about a device using my connection being infected with malware?
I've had a few emails and two letters now saying one of my devices is infected with Malware.
I've scanned both main computers (full scans) with Windows defender and nothing found. I've scanned my laptop with Windows defender and nothing found.
The mobile phones all have play protect or equivalent on. I've phoned virgin about this and the lady on the phone had no idea what to do as she had never come across this situation.
She put a note on my account showing that I had scanned everything and everything was clear.
I have virgin webprotect on, I have malware protection through my router as well as the built in Windows options and the mobiles are virus free, so I don't know what else to do!
Thanks
James
Dodsy said:
Download and run malwarebytes. Its free and will find plenty that the built in tools dont. My record when testing friends machines was 25000 items which antivirus didnt find.
Thanks, just done this on the laptop that I only use for browsing and it found 5 detections so I'll run it on the other machines later! Thank youDodsy said:
Download and run malwarebytes. Its free and will find plenty that the built in tools dont. My record when testing friends machines was 25000 items which antivirus didnt find.
Whilst this is probably true, it's worth pointing out that those 25,000 items will have been tracking cookies which are harmless and definitely not a sign of a virus.Are you 100% sure the letter is from Virgin?
I ask as I have been getting calls from supposedly Virgin for a quite a while now about malware on my equipment. It is just a scam trying to gain virtual access to my machine to install malware.
When you call virgin are you using a phone number on the letter? If you call using a number from the virgin website do they know about the letter?
I ask as I have been getting calls from supposedly Virgin for a quite a while now about malware on my equipment. It is just a scam trying to gain virtual access to my machine to install malware.
When you call virgin are you using a phone number on the letter? If you call using a number from the virgin website do they know about the letter?
Webley said:
Are you 100% sure the letter is from Virgin?
I ask as I have been getting calls from supposedly Virgin for a quite a while now about malware on my equipment. It is just a scam trying to gain virtual access to my machine to install malware.
When you call virgin are you using a phone number on the letter? If you call using a number from the virgin website do they know about the letter?
^^^^^^^I ask as I have been getting calls from supposedly Virgin for a quite a while now about malware on my equipment. It is just a scam trying to gain virtual access to my machine to install malware.
When you call virgin are you using a phone number on the letter? If you call using a number from the virgin website do they know about the letter?
This
Actually, doing some research on Google, I think this is a sneaky bulls
t publicity campaign concocted up with some of their "partners".
It seems last year they started an initiative to improve awareness of malware (and no doubt sell some products too).
And based on the number of people who got these letters, who couldnt find a thing either, I would say its a load of made up scaremongering fake detections to scare people into thinking they need to buy protection from Virgin.
This is almost as bad as the campaign where a solicitors sent a load of letters to people saying we found porn completely randomly. Then asked them for a fee to make it go away.
fking bds.
t publicity campaign concocted up with some of their "partners".It seems last year they started an initiative to improve awareness of malware (and no doubt sell some products too).
And based on the number of people who got these letters, who couldnt find a thing either, I would say its a load of made up scaremongering fake detections to scare people into thinking they need to buy protection from Virgin.
This is almost as bad as the campaign where a solicitors sent a load of letters to people saying we found porn completely randomly. Then asked them for a fee to make it go away.
f
king bds.The_Jackal said:
Actually, doing some research on Google, I think this is a sneaky bullst publicity campaign concocted up with some of their "partners".
It seems last year they started an initiative to improve awareness of malware (and no doubt sell some products too).
And based on the number of people who got these letters, who couldnt find a thing either, I would say its a load of made up scaremongering fake detections to scare people into thinking they need to buy protection from Virgin.
This is almost as bad as the campaign where a solicitors sent a load of letters to people saying we found porn completely randomly. Then asked them for a fee to make it go away.
fking bds.
Would not surprise me, just looked it up they are selling support packages for £5 a month or 1 off fixes for £60.t publicity campaign concocted up with some of their "partners".It seems last year they started an initiative to improve awareness of malware (and no doubt sell some products too).
And based on the number of people who got these letters, who couldnt find a thing either, I would say its a load of made up scaremongering fake detections to scare people into thinking they need to buy protection from Virgin.
This is almost as bad as the campaign where a solicitors sent a load of letters to people saying we found porn completely randomly. Then asked them for a fee to make it go away.
f
king bds.As shown above it is fairly easy to cook up some malware by including privacy threats in your definition of malware.
The_Jackal said:
Actually, doing some research on Google, I think this is a sneaky bullst publicity campaign concocted up with some of their "partners".
It seems last year they started an initiative to improve awareness of malware (and no doubt sell some products too).
And based on the number of people who got these letters, who couldnt find a thing either, I would say its a load of made up scaremongering fake detections to scare people into thinking they need to buy protection from Virgin.
Disagree, pretty much completely.t publicity campaign concocted up with some of their "partners".It seems last year they started an initiative to improve awareness of malware (and no doubt sell some products too).
And based on the number of people who got these letters, who couldnt find a thing either, I would say its a load of made up scaremongering fake detections to scare people into thinking they need to buy protection from Virgin.
People who don't take basic protections against viruses put everybody else at risk. Compromised machines are used in large-scale attacks and also as relays by all kinds of criminal gangs to hide their tracks. People generally speaking don't know they're compromised, and raising awareness that you have a responsibility to keep your machines clean and healthy is no bad thing. And if people need to pay for that expertise - well, think of it as the difference between servicing your car yourself and paying for somebody else to do it.
And it's hardly new, either. This is from 20 years go https://www.cnet.com/news/british-isp-cuts-off-vir...
Ice_blue_tvr said:
I got one a few months ago, it was only the name of the malware that gave away that it was my qnap nas that was affected.
I thought it was a good heads up as I would not really have known otherwise.
I got one years back but was never able to identify any issues - never got the letter again.I thought it was a good heads up as I would not really have known otherwise.
As for QNAP, there is a nasty cryptolocker exploit going around at the moment which is causing some QNAP owners to 'lose' all the data stored on their NASes, so anyone with one needs to be check it out:
https://youtu.be/S_4p68lDWfA
... Seems to be a vulnerability in their OS.
deckster said:
Disagree, pretty much completely.
People who don't take basic protections against viruses put everybody else at risk. Compromised machines are used in large-scale attacks and also as relays by all kinds of criminal gangs to hide their tracks. People generally speaking don't know they're compromised, and raising awareness that you have a responsibility to keep your machines clean and healthy is no bad thing. And if people need to pay for that expertise - well, think of it as the difference between servicing your car yourself and paying for somebody else to do it.
And it's hardly new, either. This is from 20 years go https://www.cnet.com/news/british-isp-cuts-off-vir...
There is a big difference between isp raising awareness and sending letters about real threats, and them sending out a scatter gun of letters about threats based on dubious or even false claims of devices being infected, and then trying to sell a solution to these dubious or false threats. People who don't take basic protections against viruses put everybody else at risk. Compromised machines are used in large-scale attacks and also as relays by all kinds of criminal gangs to hide their tracks. People generally speaking don't know they're compromised, and raising awareness that you have a responsibility to keep your machines clean and healthy is no bad thing. And if people need to pay for that expertise - well, think of it as the difference between servicing your car yourself and paying for somebody else to do it.
And it's hardly new, either. This is from 20 years go https://www.cnet.com/news/british-isp-cuts-off-vir...
deckster said:
Disagree, pretty much completely.
People who don't take basic protections against viruses put everybody else at risk. Compromised machines are used in large-scale attacks and also as relays by all kinds of criminal gangs to hide their tracks. People generally speaking don't know they're compromised, and raising awareness that you have a responsibility to keep your machines clean and healthy is no bad thing. And if people need to pay for that expertise - well, think of it as the difference between servicing your car yourself and paying for somebody else to do it.
And it's hardly new, either. This is from 20 years go https://www.cnet.com/news/british-isp-cuts-off-vir...
Thanks for just stating some basic information, confirming that malware exists. Any opinion on my actual point I was making?People who don't take basic protections against viruses put everybody else at risk. Compromised machines are used in large-scale attacks and also as relays by all kinds of criminal gangs to hide their tracks. People generally speaking don't know they're compromised, and raising awareness that you have a responsibility to keep your machines clean and healthy is no bad thing. And if people need to pay for that expertise - well, think of it as the difference between servicing your car yourself and paying for somebody else to do it.
And it's hardly new, either. This is from 20 years go https://www.cnet.com/news/british-isp-cuts-off-vir...
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