I caught the Bugbear virus!

[John Corn]

Ended up having to do a rebuild....I'm reinstallig stuff right now, I'm not sure how I got it either.:mad:
I think I've had it for around 5 days, what I noticed was that my Norton AV stopped working, thats what sent up the red flag something was wrong..

[gcutler]

Were you getting automatic updates from Norton?

[Geronimo]

Some viruses are ingenious. they turn off your virus checker, fie wall etc. Amazing ingenuity.

[gcutler]

Although some people who have Norton AV don't have it set to autodownload the new virus definitions and that could be a point of failure. Until I upgraded to my new machine, I had it on manual download where I had to say yes to accept the download (I now figure that is not such a good idea anymore).

Just trying to figure out the specs...

[John Corn]

Just guessing this virus came in through a .jpg file.

I do manual virus updates, but I agree autodownload is probably better.

[Mark Holtz]

I've been using mailwasher to check my e-mail before downloading.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by John Corn
Just guessing this virus came in through a .jpg file.

I do manual virus updates, but I agree autodownload is probably better.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.bugbear@mm.html

According to NAV page Discovered and Protected as of September 30, 2002. Thru whatever anti-virus you have, getting the product and subscription that autodownloads and updates the virus definitions is probably the best way to go.

[Steve Mehs]

Sorry to hear about that John :(
Luckily I haven't got infected by a virus, Trojan or worm yet, but I suppose it's enviable. I do a manual update check every other day. With Mcafee I only had to check on Thursdays, since updates only came out on Wednesday nights. I don't do auto updates for a very dumb reason, I don't like having the task scheduler running in the background. I like to keep a clean system try, with only have NAV and Norton IS in it at start up. I just got done downloading some security URL updates, now all my Symantec programs are up to date.

[gcutler]

Does McAfee still only do update on Wed Nights? If so I'm stick with Norton. Whan I was auto checking, but manually applying updates, I would often get several a week and one or twice got 2 updates in the same day. So At least that makes me think they are working harder?

[Geronimo]

It is sometime on Wednesday. Also specail cases lead to out of cycle updates.

[Steve Mehs]

As of late Aug they still did... (my old PC is running Mcafee, But I haven't updated the dat files since the thurs before labor day.)

[5 cents worth]

I use Norton 2002 Auto Updates, plus, I also manually check pretty much every day.  Just extended my NAV subscribtion for another year after being "saved" on at least 5 or 6 occasions (one time "Klez" and all the rest "Bugbear") within one week.  I really do feel for anyone that got "hit and destroyed" by "Bugbear" or any other virus.  Lost everything myself about 3 years ago. 

[gcutler]

Norton AV Professional 2003 now comes with 2 licenses (about 50% more in price than regular Norton AV 2003) for those who are running multiple machines at home on the internet. This or something like is may be the best money spent in quite a while.

[Brian Rector]

You could go the route of going to Symantec's website and downloading the daily definition updates. They are 3-4MB each, but sometimes its the best way to go. Symantec usually releases the definitions via LiveUpdate every Wednesday.

[John Corn]

Honestly, this is the second time I got a virus from sheer laziness, I just become to relaxed. :bang

I have to be more careful, more fullproof, my whole family uses this PC.

[gcutler]

Out of Laziness, I pay someone to mow my lawn, perhaps you can pay someone to come in and download the SW. If you have kids and they are still on allowance, make that one of their responsibilities. And then you can blame it on your kids :D

[Bogy]

I use AVG, which is free in the US. Have not had a problem on any computer running it, and the updates come out almost every day.