Antivirus software recommendations?

A

ab7

Active member
 Gloucestershire
Well, last night I experienced my first Virus.

The computer froze and came up with a screen displaying a 'police message' telling me my computer had been blocked because I had been traced being involved in one of the following... there was then a list of things like terrorism networking, pornography, hacking etc etc.

Anyway didn't take me too seconds to realise it was a virus and after some research on the net (on my phone cus my laptop was completely locked) I eventually found the solution.

I only really look at a few websites on a regular basis, but apparently this virus is quite common through Youtube. Apparently on the warning page it informs you if you pay like £100 it will be unlocked, but I never read that far as I realised it wasn't genuine straight away.

SO, my question is, does anyone have any recommendations for the best software to use, I've never had any problems before, I currently run Norton (because my mum got it with her new computer so put it on mine for free aswell), but I've previously been running AEG I think it is.

Ok so it hasn't put me out of pocket, but it's a pain in the arse that there are tw*ts about who do this kind of thing, and kinda scary that something can get into your computer and take control.
 
Any anti-virus is better than none. When I do PC's for people, I always put AVG free on, at the very least.

At work we use McAfee, but even malware can get past that (which is stupid cos a free, dedicated malware scanner finds and removes stuff that McAfee doesn't!).

Search for malwarebytes - they do a free version (often downloaded from cnet I think) that will scan your computer for existing nasties.

Then ensure your current software (Norton?) is up to date.

Windows? Make sure all windows updates are up to date, might be worth changing to Microsoft update, to update other software as well.

Then do a full AV scan.
 
kevinmarkwhite said:
I always put AVG free on, at the very least.
Click to expand...

That's the one I was trying to think of... not AEG lol.

kevinmarkwhite said:
Search for malwarebytes - they do a free version (often downloaded from cnet I think) that will scan your computer for existing nasties.

Then ensure your current software (Norton?) is up to date.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, exactly what I'm doing at the moment, just finished updating Norton and now downloading the free malwarebytes, something recommended on most of the sites with the solution to virus I had actually.

Really annoyed me all this... complete waste of my (or anyone's) time having to sort it out last night.
 
I found an article on the McAfee site about "driveby downloads" the other day. A driveby download is an infection you can get just by visiting a site...you don't have to download anything, it can do it without your knowledge, which is possibly where yours came from.

The advice to avoid it?

Avoid visiting compromised sites!!!!

Haha, how do you know a site is compromised!
 
Avast is better than AVG IMHO, both in terms of its success rate at detection (for reasons I won't bore you with) and load on the system.

I would also recommend installing Secunia PSI which will keep most of your software up-to-date and notify you if something needs manually updating.

Finally, the best thing you can do is to use something like NoScript which is an add-on for the Firefox browser. This stops all dynamics content, except on sites you whitelist. It can be annoying to begin with, but is worth the effort and represents probably the best possible protection against attacks like XSS, XSRF, clickjacking etc.

If you are really paranoid, it would be worth wiping your system and starting again. Even if that virus has been removed, it could have rootkitted your machine. With specific kits like 'bluepill' this is near undetectable as it basically creates a software hypervisor - so nothing in the OS can or will ever detect it. Some of them when done correctly are nearly undetectable at a computer forensic level, never mind an AV scanner.

Hope that's not too scary a prognosis. I work as a professional ethical hacker, so I probably see the worst case scenario!

All the best,

Dan
 
Recently I used to have Microsoft Security Essentials for a couple of years, their free anti-virus. It had a good detect rate in tests and was light and unobtrusive but lately i've been reading that it's not keeping up with other antivirus programs so i switched to Avast, probably the best free antivirus program right now. It takes some fiddling to set it up as i want it but it works pretty good so far and has some great features. For example it monitors your installed programs for newer updates and informs and downloads them for you if you want. Before Security Essentials and Avast i had a paid subscription with Kasperksy Antivirus and was very happy with it.

As others mentioned just scan with Malwarebytes every now and then and schedule an auto-scan with your antivirus of choice weekly or even daily if you want to be extra sure.
 
+1 for Avast.

swear by it (even has a version for OsX and Android)

I also would recommend using AddBlock Plus (firefox/chrome)

Not only does it improve your browsing experience by removing adds it prevents unnecessary scripts from installing themselves as they're not even loaded.
 
For a hassle free life you just need the following free items

1) AVG Free
2) CC Cleaner
3) Malwarebytes
4) Spybot

Update and Run them frequently - no issues.

One human factor you need to control is what you are actually clicking on the screen - click what you think is right and you have told some malware to install and do its thing....its viscious out there!
 
kevinmarkwhite said:
The advice to avoid it?
Click to expand...
This means installing a plug-in blocker (ad-block/click-to-flash/etc.), disabling Java (not Javascript) and not having an admin privileges on your user account :headbang:

I have MSE, Ad-Block, Click-To-Flash and Java (in the browser) disabled - that's it. Not had an infection yet - despite regularly visiting the grottier regions of the internet :P
 
I use Microsoft Security Essentials .........its free and not resource hungry and the free version of Malwarebytes
 
I have a on going issue with my PC which is running Win 7 the problem is when I do a search with Google and then click on a search result it then redirects me to a completely different site to the one I was wanting or relevant ,I'm using Norton 360 and have used Malwarebytes to try and find if anything is on there that shouldn't be but no joy.

Sorry for hijacking but if anyone can give me an answer to the problem which is very annoying :headbang:
 
Redzedfour said:
I have a on going issue with my PC which is running Win 7 the problem is when I do a search with Google and then click on a search result it then redirects me to a completely different site to the one I was wanting or relevant ,I'm using Norton 360 and have used Malwarebytes to try and find if anything is on there that shouldn't be but no joy.

Sorry for hijacking but if anyone can give me an answer to the problem which is very annoying :headbang:
Click to expand...
That sounds like norton's (or another) plug in working on your browser. Have you tried resetting you browser's default search engine to google and/or disabling the browser plugins? Otherwise check the search engine's URL as they can be hijacked by sites (especially if you have kids downloading smileys etc)....


Tapatalking...
 
Redzedfour said:
I have a on going issue with my PC which is running Win 7 the problem is when I do a search with Google and then click on a search result it then redirects me to a completely different site to the one I was wanting or relevant ,I'm using Norton 360 and have used Malwarebytes to try and find if anything is on there that shouldn't be but no joy.

Sorry for hijacking but if anyone can give me an answer to the problem which is very annoying :headbang:
Click to expand...

Sounds like you're probably infected with something nasty. If both your anti-virus and Malwarebytes find nothing maybe it's better to just start from scratch...

Perhaps try Spybot Search & Destroy and maybe one of the online anti-virus scans like these: http://www.bitdefender.com/scanner/online/free.html or http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/ or http://www.kaspersky.com/virus-scanner. Just make sure that when you click on the links i posted, the addresses in the address bar are exactly the same written here. Some infections either block internet access to certain websites like anti-virus program websites to stop you from downloading them, or they may redirect you to another website altogether. If you access them correctly try the scanners to see if they pick something up. If they STILL don't find anything then the only thing i can think of is to back-up the essentials and then format...

I hope this helps and if others have any other suggestions or want to correct me in something please do so.
 
For what it is worth, AVAST is as good as anything else out there.
No matter how much protection you invest in you will never be 100% safe. Go for AV coverage and learn how to be savvy about clocking on links and being redirected to websites etc.
 
Everyone is missing the best fix. Get a Mac.... :fuelfire: And that's from someone who earns a living supporting Microsoft products...
 
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