Virus Warning

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by brijar

...Why on Earth would someone want to spread/make a virus that destroys the computers it infects....

Because they can. And malware that targets user browsing habits for marketing reasons is more like spyware/adware than a virus. And Trojans usually don't do anything by themselves other than open a door to allow something in that can. I

Originally Posted by BrianG

I suppose a vieus could damage hardware if it altered the settings for CPU vcore settings or something like that. But you'd think you'd get lockups or something.

ok thank you

[mkrusedc]

According to snopes.com some of these are real and some are hoaxes. The second one down sounds like what BP is saying and it appears to be a hoax.

http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q...&sp-m=1&sp-s=0

[MTBikerTim]

It is quite easy to write a virus which can damage hardware. Biggest problem is getting something that works on more then one motherboard or brand of motherboard. The annoying thing which doesn't damage hardware but is a pain in the arse to fix is when a virus flashes the bios back to nothing. Most bioss can be written to from windows, if it's flashable you normally do it from with in an OS whether it be dos or windows it doesn't really matter (some have settings to disable this as well ). There were quite a few viruses which wiped bioses a few years ago. There have been a few viruses that set bios values to the wrong things but this normally results in a system that will not boot and do not end up causing damage. The biggest problem for these sorts of viruses is virus protection. Virus protection tends to pick them up very quickly.

[VintageMA]

The general trend in viruses nowadays isn't aimed at wiping files on your C: drive or damaging your computer hardware. They are aimed at installing themselves in your system as rootkits or bots. From there they can either execute themselves as virtual machines or pesky applications that will take forever to get rid of because they launch with a new .exe name every time.

I had one guy at work who brought his laptop in because he couldn't get out to the Internet. He was using his laptop at home plugged directly in to his cable modem (not using a Linksys or other home router) and got a virus that hooked into his network connection as a proxy. When I ran a netstat -a from a command prompt I saw established network connections to a .hk domain name.

And this guy didn't open an infected e-mail or browse to a malicious site or anything - he just had his laptop directly connected to the Internet. It is my recommendation that everyone put there home computers behind a home router, even if they just have one machine. It may not protect you from a serous hacker or opening an infected e-mail - but it will protect you from viruses that scan you Internet IP for open ports and infect your pc through those open ports.

We provide all of our users with Linksys home routers when we give them their laptops. $50 of expense will, in the long run, save you from a days worth of frustration cleaning out an infected machine by hand whe even your AV software will not detect and get rid of all traces.

[MTBikerTim]

Yeah I hate direct connection to the internet setups. Even with a software firewall it's risky.