"Virus" from website passes firewall?

[Tafia]

Folks,


Would you care to peep at this thread:

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=10&t=305600&p=1

DO NOT CLICK ON LINK IN FIRST POST

Look at the posts reporting problems with the link in the first post and also my post on what an IT chap has said has happened. Is what he says correct?

Edited by Tafia on Saturday 9th September 17:18

[GreenV8S]

I haven't looked at the suspect page, but what your IT chap says sounds about right. The firewall will stop other people from accessing your machine, and if it's a good one it will also stop unauthorised software on your machine from accessing the internet, for example to report your credit card details etc. What it won't usually do is stop scripts and controls from dodgy web sites that you have visited from being downloaded to your PC and run. Your browser security settings are intended to control that, and there are various anti-spyware and anti-virus products that try to help, but you can never be completely confident you're safe.

If you suspect your machine might be infected I think you would be advised to run the well known online virus/spyware scanners to find out whether you've been infected and what with, and then look for removal instructions from the major anti-virus suppliers and well known support forums. While you're doing this bear in mind that there are viruses disguised as anti-virus software, and viruses that pretend to be anti-virus software warning you to apply patches and downloads which actually install other viruses. Be careful who you trust.

[agent006]

I think you've encountered the common or garden bollox talker. All identified viruses are named and will be identified by a decent virus scanner. I assume he offered to come and "fix" the "problem" for a small fee?

[Tafia]

I have AVG 7 Professional plus the AVG firewall installed but was concerned it may have missed something.

Just done a full scan and nothing found.

[tvrgit]

Full system scan and nothing found here either.

I was starting to suspect the well known "bollox" virus as well - that was why I asked for a specific name.

[deva link]

It probably gives you a tracking cookie.

[Tafia]

tvrgit said:

Full system scan and nothing found here either.

I was starting to suspect the well known "bollox" virus as well - that was why I asked for a specific name.

I have asked my relative to get the name from the techie who says he knows it.

Will post when I have it

[ATG]

Sounds like techy bloke was talking bollox. If your cousin switched off her computer without shutting it down properly (particularly if it was in the process of writing to disc), that is far more likely to have knackered it than some partially downloaded virus that managed to restart its own download later.

It isn't at all surprising that trying to watch a video stream might have set off a firewall alarm. Firewalls are supposed to monitor and control the flow of data through a given point point on your network. If a site starts pumping data at you, that is precisely the kind of thing the firewall might complain about. Until you've got it tweaked for your own requirements, you'll get false alarms. (Or worse still, if its default settings are wide open, it'll offer you little protection until you're tweaked it.)

[GreenV8S]

ATG said:

If a site starts pumping data at you, that is precisely the kind of thing the firewall might complain about.

I wouldn't expect a firewall to care about the volume of traffic, unless it is doing packet shaping or load monitoring. Normal domestic firewalls don't do anything like that.

[Tafia]

Techie says now he doesn't know the name of the virus but that it did cause the crash??????????

Now in the process of re-loading Windows and trying to recover files

To be continued.

[beanbag]

Viruses usually have knaff all to do with the firewalls. It's AV protection that gets affected if the virus disables the AV software.

I also think your techie mate is about as much a techie as my mum is a machine code programmer.

[Tafia]

Update.

Techie says the name of the virus which caused the laptop to crash is Chrisdood32.exe

Hmmm.

Just trying to gain knowledge, I Googled this "virus" and it was not found.

So I looked on the sites of the top virus software producers and found:

AVG. Not heard of it.

McAfee. Not heard of it.

About.com, who look at the leading AV companies. Not heard of it.

Avast......not heard of it

Norton Symantec..not heard of it.

Sophos, not heard of it.

Not on Kapersky virus list

Proland, not heard of it

Trend..long search of their site...not heard of it.

Eset/Nod32 Top rated AV company....not heard of it.

It's a puzzle.

[beanbag]

I think a certain techie is still telling porkies!

[GreenV8S]

Tafia said:

It's a puzzle.

If none of those places have heard about it within a few hours, I'd be pretty sure it isn't a virus.

[Plotloss]

Theres a slim slim chance that it could be Win32.Bofra.E but I think its substantially more likely that he's talking guff.

[thepassenger]

Take 2x4, approach 'techie'. Wave 2x4 in a meanacing manner, demand techie stop talk boswelox.

[Tafia]

thepassenger said:

Take 2x4, approach 'techie'. Wave 2x4 in a meanacing manner, demand techie stop talk boswelox.

He 300 miles from me.

[ATG]

Techie spouting impressive sounding bol-locks ... think the postman bloke, Cliff, in Cheers.

[Tafia]

ATG said:

Techie spouting impressive sounding bol-locks ... think the postman bloke, Cliff, in Cheers.

I tend to agree. Sadly he is known as a bull pooher. More sadly, it costs my relative oodles of pounds each time the lappy goes down. Never something simple; always a huge problem which takes ages to fix.