Something has got to be done about flash drives.
I woke up this morning feeling 'relatively' refreshed thanks to that wonderful Korean movie I watched last night. Yes, I watched a Korean movie last night at the opening of the Korean Film Festival. Taeguk-Gi was about two brothers drafted to fight in the Korean War... and everything else was just fluff to me. They had me at 'war'. Hehehehe...
What made the movie even more enjoyable was the beautiful story and the way the makers of the film integrated the drama and action sequences together. It was seamless, almost perfect, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. The experience would make my Film 100 paper easier to write come next week.
Back to this morning. I turned on the computer and, strangely enough, the my anti-virus program was not working. A quick look at the hard drives saw a huge drop in memory. Task Manager was also working strangely, since when I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL all I got was a message saying that 'the computer administrator has denied access to the Task Manager". That set off the alarm. My account was the administrator account. Someone screwed up big time.
It had to be a virus or a hacker. I turned off the Internet connection and fired up Avira Anti-virus. The program turned on, but when I clicked on 'start system scan' nothing happened. My anti-virus software had been compromised. I tried the Administrator Tools hidden away at the Control Panel, and I got my first break: the Event Log showed that Avira had detected a virus in my dad's flash drive two days ago. A quick check with my dad also revealed that the anti-virus program had been non-functional for at least a day before.
I tried to clean up the registry, but that too had been compromised; I couldn't get the msconfig utility to run. It was only when I ran Lavasoft Ad-Aware that I found and fixed the problems in the computer's registry. Yes, it also checks the system registry for errors and possible malware. Time check: it was already two hours after I first turned on the computer.
With my anti-virus program compromised, I had to get a new one. I first tried an online scan from Trend Micro, but for some reason or other it wouldn't start. I finally gave Avira the boot and replaced it with Avast!. This was just what the doctor ordered. The download took less than 5 minutes, the installation even less. The best part of it all was that the program turned on even before Windows itself was completely started up. A three-hour complete system scan turned up five different worms, trojans, and an 'unknown'.
I spent the better part of the day cleaning up the computer; it was only at 3 PM that I finally got to go online. I must say that I'm extremely relieved to have taken care of that virus without having to resort to a complete reformat.
I've traced the infection to my dad's flash drive, specifically to a file named 'Nicole.exe'. My cute little sister's ears should still be ringing from all the screams... Hehehehe...
I could use this little debacle as an introduction for my speech on Friday. Yes! Although the quote from Josef Stalin ("One death is a tragedy, while the death of millions is just a statistic") is more apt for a speech bordering on a call for genocide; plus the shock value of squishing on ant then pouring a bottle of alcohol on a jar full of the little buggers would really score points for "visual aids".
Speaking of ants, there are a whole lot of them in the garage right now. Time for some stress relief...
I woke up this morning feeling 'relatively' refreshed thanks to that wonderful Korean movie I watched last night. Yes, I watched a Korean movie last night at the opening of the Korean Film Festival. Taeguk-Gi was about two brothers drafted to fight in the Korean War... and everything else was just fluff to me. They had me at 'war'. Hehehehe...
What made the movie even more enjoyable was the beautiful story and the way the makers of the film integrated the drama and action sequences together. It was seamless, almost perfect, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. The experience would make my Film 100 paper easier to write come next week.
Back to this morning. I turned on the computer and, strangely enough, the my anti-virus program was not working. A quick look at the hard drives saw a huge drop in memory. Task Manager was also working strangely, since when I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL all I got was a message saying that 'the computer administrator has denied access to the Task Manager". That set off the alarm. My account was the administrator account. Someone screwed up big time.
It had to be a virus or a hacker. I turned off the Internet connection and fired up Avira Anti-virus. The program turned on, but when I clicked on 'start system scan' nothing happened. My anti-virus software had been compromised. I tried the Administrator Tools hidden away at the Control Panel, and I got my first break: the Event Log showed that Avira had detected a virus in my dad's flash drive two days ago. A quick check with my dad also revealed that the anti-virus program had been non-functional for at least a day before.
I tried to clean up the registry, but that too had been compromised; I couldn't get the msconfig utility to run. It was only when I ran Lavasoft Ad-Aware that I found and fixed the problems in the computer's registry. Yes, it also checks the system registry for errors and possible malware. Time check: it was already two hours after I first turned on the computer.
With my anti-virus program compromised, I had to get a new one. I first tried an online scan from Trend Micro, but for some reason or other it wouldn't start. I finally gave Avira the boot and replaced it with Avast!. This was just what the doctor ordered. The download took less than 5 minutes, the installation even less. The best part of it all was that the program turned on even before Windows itself was completely started up. A three-hour complete system scan turned up five different worms, trojans, and an 'unknown'.
I spent the better part of the day cleaning up the computer; it was only at 3 PM that I finally got to go online. I must say that I'm extremely relieved to have taken care of that virus without having to resort to a complete reformat.
I've traced the infection to my dad's flash drive, specifically to a file named 'Nicole.exe'. My cute little sister's ears should still be ringing from all the screams... Hehehehe...
I could use this little debacle as an introduction for my speech on Friday. Yes! Although the quote from Josef Stalin ("One death is a tragedy, while the death of millions is just a statistic") is more apt for a speech bordering on a call for genocide; plus the shock value of squishing on ant then pouring a bottle of alcohol on a jar full of the little buggers would really score points for "visual aids".
Speaking of ants, there are a whole lot of them in the garage right now. Time for some stress relief...
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