CA Antivirus

[Dorkspawn]

Hey all. I don't want to be too slanderous, but I thought I'd put this out to maybe stop someone from making the same mistake I did. I've been using Computer Associates EZ Antivirus for 3 years. Back in February, Spybot found
Torpig on my computer. My antivirus didn't seem to know nor care. Yesterday, after being hounding by CA to renew and hijacking my browser for several days, I downloaded Avast! and scanned my computer. It found Win32:sinowal which had the same date as Torpig. Again, CA didn't seem to know nor care.

So now that I've changed my login at all the financial sites I visit, I wanted to save someone else the trouble and expense of buying CA Antivirus. It's supposed to be lean and mean and not be a resource hog, but it doesn't work, so that kinda offsets it's benefits.

[Budfred]

You will not find a single security program that will protect against all threats... An antivirus will protect against viruses and a limited number of spyware or trojan programs... An antispyware will protect against spyware and trojans as well as some worms... A firewall will protect against some random intrusions... There is NO antivirus that will catch every virus, no antispyware that will protect against every spyware and no firewall that is foolproof... Your best bet is a combination of careful use of the internet with a full range of security programs and a well protected browser... Here is the prevention speech I give people when their computers have been cleaned...
Some will NOT apply to you...

Please consider using these ideas to help secure your computer. While there is no way to guarantee safety when you use a computer, these steps will make it much less likely that you will need to endure another infection. While we really like to help people, we would rather help you protect yourself so that you won't need that help in the future. :thumbup:

Please navigate to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and download all the "Critical Updates" for Windows. These will patch many of the security holes through which attackers can gain access to your computer. Your current versions appear to be outdated.

Please either enable Automatic Updates under Start -> Control Panel -> Automatic Updates or get into the habit of checking Windows Update regularly. They usually have security updates every month. You can set Windows to notify you of Updates so that you can choose, but only do this if you believe you are able to understand which ones are needed. This is a crucial security measure.

As a minimum, you need at least an antivirus, firewall and some type of anti-spyware program.

Please consider installing and running some of the following programs; they are either free or have free versions of commercial programs:

Spybot-Search & Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download)
A tutorial on using Spybot to remove spyware from your computer may be found here (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial43.html). Please also remember to enable Spybot's "Immunize" and "TeaTimer" features if you don't have the resident part of another anti-spyware program running.

SpywareBlaster (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html)
A tutorial on using SpywareBlaster to prevent malware from ever installing on your computer may be found here (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial49.html).

SpywareGuard (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html)
A tutorial on using SpywareGuard for real-time protection against spyware and hijackers may be found here (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial50.html).

If you use Internet Explorer, it is a good idea to use IE-Spyad (http://www.spywarewarrior.com/uiuc/resource.htm) which provides protections against malicious websites.

Please keep these programs up-to-date and run them whenever you suspect a problem to prevent malware problems. A number of programs have resident protection and it is a good idea to run the resident protection of one of each type of program to maintain protection. However, it is important to run only one resident program of each type since they can conflict and become less effective. That means only one antivirus, firewall and scanning anti-spyware program at a time. Passive protectors, like SpywareBlaster and IE-Spyad can be run with any of them.

Note that there are a lot of rogue programs out there that want to scare you into giving them your money and some malware actually claims to be security programs. If you get a popup for a security program that you did not install yourself, do NOT click on it and ask for help immediately. It is very important to run an antivirus and firewall, but you can't always rely on reviews and ads for information. Ask in a security forum that you trust if you are not sure. If you are unsure and looking for anti-spyware programs, you can find out if it is a rogue here:

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

Please consider using an alternate browser. Mozilla's Firefox browser is a very good alternative. In addition to being generally more secure than Internet Explorer, it has a very good built-in popup blocker and add-ons, like NoScripts, can make it even more secure. Opera is another good option.
If you are interested, Firefox may be downloaded from here (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/)
Opera is available here: http://www.opera.com/download/

For much more useful information, please also read Tony Klein's excellent article: How did I get infected in the first place (http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showtopic=60955)

Hopefully these steps will help to keep you error free. If you run into more difficulty, we will certainly do what we can to help. :)