January 24, 2007

Curious George Gets a Virus: My girlfriend's laptop has got a virus... maybe?

According to the Norton Internet Security that hasn't been subscribed to for about a year, this computer has a "rapidly spreading outbreak" called Trojan.Peacomm. Because Norton is such a cumbersome program I downloaded AVG and updated it. After running a virus scan, it found no problems at all. Is this because the virus was already on the computer when the anti-virus was installed? I tried running Norton to get rid of the problem, but after a long, long, long time running it hadn't found anything and was far from finishing. I turned it off after some time because it was sucking a lot of system resources and because the wording of the alert made it seem as though the only way to remove this threat was to resubscribe to Symantec (this is when I tried the AVG). Is it illegal for an anti-virus company to alert you to a virus your computer doesn't have in order to entice you into resubscribing? Neither of us has a great deal of ability with these things, but on the other hand neither of us is stupid enough to open an email with attachments that we weren't expecting. We both use webmail and don't use email browsers to read our mail. I am having problems locating the files and registry keys that this virus is supposed to download, however. They just aren't there. Anyway, I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to resubscribe if she doesn't have to, but it seems like she may have to. She's already backed up her files just in case something drastic happens/needs to be done. Any suggestions/info/jokes/advice for cooking a roast? Any help with the virus would be appreciated too. Thanks.

posted by InsolentChimp 17 years ago
  • > Is this because the virus was already on the computer when the anti-virus was installed? Normally no, unless it can mutate very rapidly and remove traces of itself. Another possibility is that AVG doesn't have a definition of Peacomm and doesn't know what to look for. There are instructions here on how to remove Peacomm manually, but maybe you've seen these already? What's the actual wording of the message from Norton?
  • I have found that a good place to go with problems like this is geeksToGo.com. Free help that usually works. FWIW.
  • Here are some online anti-virus scanners. I think that they are ie only. http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm. Two other downloadable aintivirus programs are http://www.free-av.com/ and http://www.avast.com/
  • You downloaded AVG - but did you update it? Try that twice. Then restart in Safe mode and run it again. Also, you make no mention of antimalware software (like ad-aware or spybot). I'd install/update and run both of those too.
  • I saw this announcement on someone's computer, too, and I thought it was a warning that there was a new rapidly spreading virus out in the wild, not that his computer was necessarily infected. (Did I misread this? It's entirely possible.) I read it as a sort of come-on to resubscribe.
  • I hate Norton. I used it for a couple of years and came to the conclusion that it was about as annoying as having viruses, all in all.
  • Get a Mac. Or Linux. =P
  • I like Avast better than AVG -- I've had problems with AVG slowing down my system a lot or not getting along with my firewall and whatnot.
  • If it is Trojan.Peacomm, did the manual fix do it?
  • Play it safe, dental dams usually do the trick! Oops, wrong thread
  • *puts wig back in place*
  • I do use spybot and adaware, filmgeek just because one sometimes finds what the other doesn't. If you'll notice, I did update AVG. I appreciate the advice on AVG, fimbulvetr. I'll look into avast and see how it works for me. We both use the firewall that's on the router, I didn't really think that it was necessary to use the windows firewall or another firewall. Neither of us store any personal information on our computers. Should we be using another firewall on top of the router? I couldn't find any of the files using a search, pete. You're probably right, meridithea. The alert actually says, "your computer is not protected against these rapidly spreading threats: Trojan.Peacomm." Maybe I'm reading too much into this. I thought it meant that the vius was rapidly spreading through that computer. I think Norton tells you that your computer is "infected" outright. I feel pretty much the same about Norton, Plegmund, but it's not my computer. I can only suggest she changes it. Aren't dental dams those things for the beaver lodge, smt? Thanks for the links, roryk, fish tick, jcc and Ralph (that looks like a useful site). Now, can anyone tell me how to cook a roast?
  • Synchronicity! My work laptop has started to get that same Norton popup too. I'm behind a hardware firewall and don't click on email attachments, so I am pretty sure it isn't a real infection (plus the reg key and the files aren't present). Still, I'm in the process of getting my old paid-up subscription transferred over to this new machine anyhow.
  • Funny. Went to the ClamWin and couldn't find anything about it, yet of course the Oracle of Google has a lot of results for it. Have you tried the Cleaner? It is free for 30 days, so you can actually do some cleaning. Links cleaner: http://www.moosoft.com/www/ clamwin: http://www.clamwin.com/
  • I got something similar from McAfee some months ago. After a brief panic (made sure I had updated definitions and scanned,) I came to the conclusion that it was a weird marketing ploy. I mean, why send that sort of message to someone who takes a product that's supposed to protect you from outbreaks? There has been no indication since then that my computer is infected, and I run several programs that should detect either viruses or malware. I really think you don't have that problem.
  • Yeah, path, I'm more and more reassured that meredithea read the warning right as I check up on these things. There is absolutely no trace of this virus on her computer. Solution? She deleted Norton. Neither of us support these fear-based advertising schemes. My understanding is that you shouldn't run multiple anti-virus software at the same time because they may interfere with each other in some way. That is, don't run their active protection simultaneously, but I believe scanning with two AV software programs consecutively is fine.
  • Norton's is a notorious pain in the dick, is it not?
  • I have Norton installed on a machine at home. It's been telling me to renew my subscription every fucking time the machine reverts from suspend for the six weeks, even though there's still two weeks to run on the current subscription. It's a money-grabbing ploy to shorten a year's subscription to 10 months, as far as I can tell.
  • the six weeks -> the last six weeks
  • I had to dump it from my father-in-law's machine. Because if it was running you couldn't download an attachment. Not that I am any PC genius, but I have to administrate that thing, and frankly I'd rather slack off around here than spend my time googling shit I don't even use.
  • dump norton and macafee. They are both caught up in an arms race to see who can have more checkmarks on the back of their box. While I have some AV programs on my computer, I have all the services turned off and only manually run them once every two or three months. The best thing to do is to learn not to get them.
  • My mother has a new pc (well, it's six months old now). It runs slower than black strap molasses... slower than that sloth... slower than an idle procrastinator's clock... In fact, it takes a good ten minutes just to boot. And why? Norton anti-virus, firewall, password keeper, etc... It's pure evil I tell you!
  • Sounds like a virus d00d
  • Does anyone think I should use a software firewall to compliment the router firewall? Or should I drop that ques. on Ralph's link.
  • i think the conventional wisdom be "no", but lemme know if RTD slinky says different
  • There are two potential uses for a software firewall in addition to a router. One is if the software firewall also monitors outbound traffic (which the Microsoft Windows Firewall does not). However, they can be a pain in the ass because when you first use it, it constantly asks, "Do you want to allow program X to access the internet?" and the risk is that you will get so used to automatically saying "yes" to everything that you will just say "yes" to everything without reading it, and then let the spyware access the internet anyway. The second reason is if you have multiple computers behind the router. Then the software firewall would be useful because if one of the other computers got a virus it would prevent that computer from getting it. However, I think the hassle of having a software firewall isn't worth it. I stick with my router.
  • Ok. Thanks, all. I'll see if I can post and get back to this thread later.
  • Here's the advice from Geeks to Go.