Spectacular Computer Repair PC Help Forums

Start Notes Before Reading
This post is for the beginner/novice in computer repair and viral infections. This post is merely for informational purposes and does not consitute everything there is to know about viral infections and other types of malware out there.

This post is meant to educate someone on the different dangers out there on the Internet and what you can do about these dangers. There is a lot to write about here so be prepared to read.

End Notes Before Reading

One of the most commonly asked questions I receive in my computer repair shop is "I think I have a virus. Do I?"

Well, that is a loaded question. We should break that question down a little bit. There are multiple different types of infections out there including, but not limited to:

1. Viruses or Virii

2. Worms (not classified as a virus)

3. Trojans

4. Annoying Malware

5. Dangerous Malware

6. Annoying Adware

7. Malicious Adware

8. Silent Spyware

9. Annoying Spyware

10. Badware

11. Modem Porn Dialers

12. Internet Porn Dialers

13. Grayware

14. Morphing Viruses

15. Keyloggers

16. Screen Capture

17. Mass Mailing Worms

18. Spamware

19. Space Filling Worms

20. Whitehat hackers (not really a danger)

21. Blackhat hackers (dangerous)

22. Rootkits

(If I missed any that anyone can think of please reply to the post and I will update it with that)

The first thing to know is that there is not anything that I have run across that is 100% protection against everything. At the time of writing this, it simply does not exist. There are a lot of items out there that claim they can protect you but they just take your money.

Each one of the dangers on the list above can be broken down into smaller sections as well. To keep this to a minimal and user friendly we are going to leave them at that level.

I am going to attempt to teach a little something about these different dangers out there, what they are, where they most commonly come from and how to help prevent them from infecting a computer.

The very first thing you will want to know is what are all of those fancy words. The definitions of them are as follows:

1. Viruses or Virii: A virus is classified as any program that replicates its own code onto another program. A virus is generally a program which can be walk and talk between computers via insecure networks (typically 2 or more computers in your house or business that can talk back and forth. With the P2P [peer to peer] networks and instant messenger software out there computers can now link up over the Internet very easily as well), removable storage such as CDs, USB drives, floppy disks, email, infected webpages generally without the knowledge or consent of the recipient

2. Worms (not classified as a virus): A worm is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other computer systems and it may do so without any user intervention. There are annoying worms and dangerous worms out there. Unfortunately, you will know when you have the dangerous one, because nothing in your computer is working properly. (Please note that just because nothing in your computer works properly does not consitute and is not enough proof that you have a dangerous worm in your computer.)

3. Trojans: Trojan horses are programs that find their way onto your computer through various means.. They do not want to be found and they allow a malicious attacker access in to your computer going around your hardware firewall. The term is derived from the classical story of the Trojan Horse.
Example: A downloadable file named screensaver.scr could serve as a simple example of a trojan horse. The make of the program claims it is a free screensaver. When the user (you) downloads and runs it, the program instead unloads hidden programs, commands, scripts, or any number of commands without the user's knowledge or consent. Malicious Trojan Horse programs are used to circumvent protection systems in effect creating a vulnerable system to allow unauthorized access to the user's computer. Non-malicious Trojan Horse programs are used for managing and forensics.

4. Annoying Malware: This term is short for malicious software. This annoying malware programs are programs or files that are designed with the intention to specifically scare you. Annoying malware is most commonly found as programs that falsely claim the computer is infected with viral infections in hopes of scaring the user into purchasing their software. Purchasing their software is a bad thing. The annoying pieces of malware do no damage to your system. They are merely designed to scare the user.

5. Dangerous Malware: This term, once again, is short for malicous software. The dangerous and malicous programs or files are designed to specifically damage or disrupt a system, such as a virus, worm, or a Trojan horse. These dangerous programs are also found in the list of programs that falsely identify massive amounts of infections on a computer in hopes of scaring the user into purchasing the product the malware is attempting to sell. Once again, actually purchasing this software is a bad thing. The difference between this malware and the previous is, if you do not purchase, this malware will actually start to download real viral infections and other pieces of malware to your computer. This is what causes the damage to your machine.

6. Annoying Adware: Adware comes in many different flavors. There is malicous and annoying adware. The annoying adware programs merely pop up ads in front of the user usually in trade for some program that was installed onto the computer such as Kazaa Free. There are other adware programs out there that are slient. These programs do not damage to your computer and the user usually doesn't even realize they exist.

7. Malicious Adware: These types of programs are a kind of spyware in the manner that they collect various information about the user. These programs utilize this information to display advertisements in the users browser or popups on the users computer based upon the information it collects from the user's computer usage and Internet browsing patterns. Most of the more dangerous or malicous adware programs will actually cause damage to the computers operating system in order to ensure that the ads get displayed in front of the user.

8. Silent Spyware: Spyware is software that secretly gathers information about computer usage and websites visited while the user is using the computer. This information is typically used for advertising purposes. Spyware can also gather information about email addresses, usernames, passwords and credit card numbers. Spyware typically has a keylogger built in (See below). Silent spyware is the type of spyware that the user has no idea has infected their computer. This type of spyware is extremely well made, typically does not cause any damage to your computer nor take up a lot of resources on the computer (does not slow the computer down. This highly depends on the amount of memory and CPU power in your computer.)

9. Annoying Spyware: Annoying spyware falls under the same lines as annoying malware. This is the type of spyware that is found on a users computer however does not cause any damage on the computer. Typically this spyware will warn about possible infections on the computer or state to the user that the computer could be in an unstable state and the user should purchase a specific piece of software to repair this. When the user downloads, installs and purchases this software it will then actually remove any active real spyware infections whilst it installs its own spyware onto the computer.

10. Badware: This term comes from Google. This term refers to any website that Google is aware of that can possibly contain trojan horses, viral infections, spyware infections or other pieces of badware that could damage your computer.

11. Modem Porn Dialers: A Modem Porn Dialer is a program that uses the computer's modem to connect to an online pornographic service, often without the user's knowledge and consent, by dialing a toll number that adds long distance charges to the telephone bill. Porn Dialers may be downloaded through exploits and installed without user notice and consent. A Porn Dialer may be legitimate if downloaded and installed with full, meaningful, and informed user consent.

12. Internet Porn Dialers: An Internet Porn Dialer is a program that uses the computer's broadband Internet connection to connect to an online pornographic service, often without the user's knowledge and consent. Usually these dialers come with key loggers to attain personal information about the computer user such as name, address, credit card information. Porn Dialers may be downloaded through exploits and installed without user notice and consent. A Porn Dialer may be legitimate if downloaded and installed with full, meaningful, and informed user consent.

13. Grayware: Grayware is defined as Any and all applications/software that cause annoying and possibly undesirable or unforeseen behaviour in the way programs function or are expected to function. Grayware is terminology used to define these programs as a whole and is not to be thought of as a specfic piece of malware.

14. Morphing Viruses: A morphing viral infection is short for a metamorphosing viral infection. Morphing refers to a virus that has the abililty to change its viral signature at will. These are extremely dangerous and surprising viral infections as when you believe that you have them removed or stopped from loading on startup of hte computer, they surprise you because they really just changed their signature once the virus realized that it was being removed and the elimination process has to start over once again.

15. Keyloggers: Keylogging software involves the capturing of information that you type on the keyboard. This technique and software is often utilized by fraudsters, black hat hackers, cyber criminals and other malicious people to capture personal details about users including passwords, usernames, websites visited, banking information, credit card details.

16. Screen Capture: Screen capture software can be used to capture the current screen the user is viewing and send it via slient email back to another person on the Internet. This type of software is typically utilized to spy on users by different spyware programs and other legitimate key logging software.

17. Mass Mailing Worms: This is a special type of software program that spreads without any user interaction, typically by exploiting a flaw in Windows operating systems. This program will distribute fully functional whole or partial copies of itself to other computers. Many worms have been created which are only designed to spread, and do not attempt to damage the operating systems. However, as proven by the Morris worm and Mydoom worm, the network traffic and other unintended effects can often cause major disruption in the network or on the computer utilizing much needed resources for the computer or network to function properly. A "payload" is code designed to do more than spread the worm; it might delete files on a host computer such as the ExploreZip worm, encrypt files in a cryptoviral extortion attack, or send documents via e-mail. A very common payload for worms is to install a backdoors or trojans into the infected computer to allow the creation of a "zombie computer" under control of the worm author. Sobig and Mydoom are examples of worms that created zombies. Networks of such machines are often referred to as botnets and are very commonly used by spammers for sending junk spam email or to cloak their website's address.

Backdoors can be exploited by other malware, including worms. Examples of other worms utilizing backdoors or trojans include the Doomjuice worm, which spreads better using the backdoor opened by the Mydoom worm, and at least one instance of malware taking advantage of the rootkit and backdoor installed by the Sony/BMG DRM software utilized by millions of music CDs prior to late 2005.

Worms with good intent
Beginning with the very first research into worms at Xerox PARC there have been attempts to create useful worms. The Nachi family of worms, for example, tried to download and install patches from Microsoft's website to fix vulnerabilities in the host system by exploiting those same vulnerabilities. In practice, although this may have made these systems more secure, it generated considerable network traffic, rebooted the machine in the course of patching it, and did its work without the consent of the computer's owner or user.

Other worms, such as XSS worms have been written for research to determine the factors of how worms spread, such as social activity and change in user behavior. Still more worms do very little, or are pranks, such as one that sends the popular picture of the lolowl with the phrase "O RLY?" to a print queue in the infected computer. Most security experts regard all worms as malware, whatever their payload or their writers' intentions.

18. Spamware: Spamware refers to software programs usually infected on exchange servers those sole purpose is to continuously spread spam emails throughout the Internet. Spammers are therefore thought to be a source of funding for the creation of worms. Worm writers have been caught selling lists of IP addresses of infected machines to spammers.

19. Space Filling Worms: Space Filling Worms are worms classified as programs that have the shole intention of filling up all of the free space on your hard drive with useless junk files. These worms not only slow your computer down but also lock up your computer once all of the space on your hard drive has been taken up.

20. Whitehat hackers (not really a danger): These are hackers that work for security companies that are hired to test out security vulnerabilities in the computer operating system and other software. These individuals are typically extremely intelligent and are not dangerous. They can exploit vulnerabilities in your computers operating system and other software therefore making the knolwedge they have enough to have them included in this list. Most white hat hackers used to be black hat hackers.

21. Blackhat hackers (dangerous): The term Black-hat hacker is used to describe a hacker otherwise known as cracker) who breaks into a computer system or network with malicious intent. The most common general form of the use of "hacker" refers to a black-hat hacker (a malicious or criminal hacker). These individuals are extremely book smart, intelligent and dangerous. They utilize their knowledge for malicious personal gain at the expense of others.

22. Rootkits (dangerous): A rootkit is a computer virus which is comprised of a combination of several programs created with the sole intention of taking control of a computer system utilizing Adminsitrative privileges without authorization by the system's owner. Rootkits have access to the hardware (e.g., the reset switch) is rarely required. A rootkit is intended to seize control of the operating system running on the hardware. Typically, rootkits act to obscure their presence on the system through evasion of standard operating system security mechanisms. More often than not, they are Trojans as well fooling users into believing they are safe to run on their systems.

Now a lot of the above infections require different removal processes. Some of them require to your download and run on demand scnaners. Some of them require your computer to be in safe mode when running these tops of software.

A number of programs are out there to help you remove these items. Please keep in mind that you can remove the infections but you have not repaired the damage they have already caused. The best way to ensure that you do not have operating system damage and are not wasting your time removing these infections is to contact Spectacular Computer Repair directly for a full computer evaluation at 941.923.6280 or toll free outside of Florida at 1-888-923-6280.

Some of the tools that you can utilize in removing these types of infections are:

1. Ad-Aware (Needs to be installed in normal mode)

2. Spybot (Can be installed in safe mode)

3. Malware Bytes (Can be installed in safe mode)

4. SuperAntiSpyware (Can be installed in safe mode)

5. CWShredder (Doesn't need to be installed)

6. ATF Cleaner (Doesn't need to be installed)

7. HiJackThis (Can be installed in safe mode. This is a very advanced program. If you have never used this program before or are not good at telling what is good and what is bad on your computer consult a Spectacular Computer Repair expert before using this program.)

8. LSPFix.exe (Doesn't need to be installed)

9. Any online on demand anti-virus scanner

None of these are a replacement for the expertise of a professional. If you are not comfortable attempting this on your own or are not an expert at what to look for, a professional that specializes in this work is a better way to go. If you do not know what you are doing when removing viral infections you can cause more damage to your system then what the virus is causing. Contact a professional for consultation before utilizing any of the methods mentioned here today. Various operating systems will have various results as they require different methods for removal of infections.

You can contact us at the information below. Consulting starts out at only $20.00. Computer Evaluations are free if you have Spectacular Computer Repair perform any servicing work beyond that evaluation.

Call today for help.

Edited by Wayne. Reason for Editing: URL removal for My Cured Computer. Replaced with name My Cured Computer. Post locked from editing.
The article has given me clear information on Viruses, Spyware, Adware, Malware, Worms, Trojans and many more. It also helps us to learn the problems that occurs in a PC due to virus. I am using a antivirus package which I have recently installed in my system. Can any one help me to know that this is the best package? The package is My Cured Computer.

David,

I have checked into MyCuredComputer. From what I can see and have read about this company I am not sure that I would utilize their software. In other forums they have been banned. Usually this does not happen unless people are using tactics that are against the policies of that forum. If you search Google for this company and lthe word reviews you will find out the same information.

You can easily tell articles that were written by the companies pretending to be someone else such as this one:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Adware-Spyware-Removal-Software

I have been working with viruses for many years and even wrote a removal process for one of the earliest AOL trojans (BuddyList Trojan) when nobody else could get rid of this thing, including the current anti-viral companies at that time and I can say with extreme experience behind me that there is no 100% guarantee of anything out there. There are items and companies that claim they can protect you 100% however they just take your money and leave. This leads me to believe that this company is possibly one of those many companies out there that that claims they can get rid of the viral infection 100% however all they do is take your money.

One other thing to please be aware of is that, you can get rid of the infection, however you do not repair the damage it has already done. I saw all over their website where they claim 100% disinfection however did not see anything about prevention. Perhaps I missed it.

I would not use the software. It is up to you however.

These trojans are enoying me a lot. I hate when this happens and I don't know what to do. I had some problems of this type and I changed the antivirus; maybe it'll work with this problem too. I suggest you to download this kaspersky version 7 It's ok i'm sure

Hi Taly,

Kaspersky is pretty decent but you have to pay for it. I utilize a combination of AVG, SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes with the lifetime license for MalwareBytes. With this, I have not seen any infections pop up at all however a lot depends on where you are visiting as well. If you are visiting adult websites, hack sites, facebook, myspace, etc then you are more prone to catching infections then someone that is just checking their email and doing Google research.