Rating:

Well, I got my first virus ever a couple days ago.

Whatever installed itself on my system would only allow me partial access to the internet, and would not allow me access to Mcafee or any other free virus scanning tools on the internet. It prevented me from installing most downloaded content from the internet. It wouldn’t let me open a command box. It wouldn’t even let me run Task manager. I’d start task manager, and before I could click on anything the task manager window would close. In the meantime, this virus was constantly popping up windows informing me that blahblah (insert common program name here) was infected and that I should click on a button that would fix the problem. Clicking on the fix button would take me to a fake antivirus site, that claimed it would remove the infection if I paid for their software with a credit card on-line. One way I could tell it was a malicious site was by doing a google search on the site name and looking at the comments.

I rebooted my PC normally, but hit Ctrl Alt Del as soon as I got a screen (before everything had finished loading). Task manager came up, and didn’t immediately go away this time. I terminated some processes that looked suspicious (after performing internet searches on them). ASAM.exe in particular looked unusual, there was also one that seemed to have random letters for a name (like aKCSayh.exe), and wasn’t even found when I searched for it on the internet. But, after terminating and removing these from my computer, the problems I had did not go away.

I still couldn’t run Mcafee’s free virus scan. I was still getting pop up windows that looked like legitimate error messages, but in the end pointed me to the fake site that wanted to steal my money.

For some reason, I was able to install PC tools Spyware doctor. I tried a few other known valid virus detection sites first, but was still prevented from installing these site’s software. After a full scan, Spyware Doctor pointed out several potential problems on my computer, and offered to fix them if I paid the full retail price for the product (around 40 bucks). I paid the price, it removed the stuff, and my PC was back to normal.

How did I get this virus after so many years of safely avoiding these threats?

First of all, I’ve avoided viruses in the past (in-spite of no protection), by:

1. Never installing anything on my computer unless I was 99.9 percent sure it was safe.

2. Never clicking on any email attachment unless I knew via the extension it was safe. If the extension was not safe, I’d only launch an attachment if I knew who it was from AND even then ONLY if I was expecting it to arrive.

3. Always having a router in front of my connection to the internet. There were a few well known Windows viruses that would immediately infect any computer that was directly attached to the internet, even if the user did nothing but plug the internet connection into their system.

4. Always keeping my Windows operating system up to date with the latest security patches.

5. Always keeping my main browser (Firefox) up-to-date with the latest updates.

6. Never installing browser plugins unless I was 99.9 percent sure they were safe.

So again, how did I get this Virus?

It came from a corrupted PDF file that opened in my browser. I just happened to go to an internet site that displayed the PDF file and I was doomed. I didn’t click to install anything. I just went to the link. The PDF file opened, an error of some kind occured in Adobe’s software, and the malware was installed. Simple as that.

I updated Adobe’s acrobat reader to the latest version, turned off the PC tools detection software, and started visiting random sites again. Almost the exact same virus issue reinstalled itself on my system within an hour. Same exact method. Adobe Acrobat reading a corrupted PDF file.

I turned on PC tools detection (even though it kind of slowed my system down), visited the same sites again, and got a warning from the PC tools software before the malware could install.

So, the long and short of it is PC tools seems to work. Unless they are the malware. It is kind of funny that the only software that the virus allowed me to install was PC tools. But, Symantecs is a well known company, and my internet searches didn’t turn up anyone claiming something like that, so I will allay that suspicion for now.

I’ve turned off PDF viewing in the browser also. Now, if a PDF file appears, I’m prompted to download it to my computer before viewing it. I’ll just cancel the download unless I trust the site it’s coming from.

As far as I can tell, PC tools does the job it’s intended for. It seemed to slow my system down a bit when I run the dynamic virus checker, so I’ll give it 4 stars instead of 5 for that.

PDF files are on the upsurge for causing viral infections. A few years ago, I’d have never thought something that was intended to display content only (Adobe Acrobat) could be the source of viral infections.

That is all.