Date: 01/13/06 (IT Professionals)    Keywords: virus, antivirus, web

I'd thought I'd ask around, my users are having problems with \\tsclient\c\whatever being very slow, I'm not sure whether its "by design" or I have interfering stuff like antivirus scans etc going on, suffice to say it can take 1 minute or more just to display the content from any folder.

is there anything I can do to speed this up? otherwise users are currently using outlook web access just to transfer files around.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/itprofessionals/32005.html

Date: 01/17/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: software, virus, spyware

What's the largest number of viruses or spyware you've ever found on a computer?

My Aunt Eva's computer has 366 viruses and 299 instances of spyware infecting it. Prior to my installing a combined anti-virus and anti-spyware software, it seems to have gone unchecked and unprotected since somewhere around 2003.

Crossposted to my LJ and the ComputerGeeks forum

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/computergeeks/862306.html

Date: 12/13/05 (Apache)    Keywords: virus, web, google, apache

Hello, I just joined this fine community...actually it's quite an amazing coincidence that I found it right when my Apache server is having terrible problems.
I haven't had problems with it up until recently, but lately it has just been really misbehaving on me! Normally I have one of my friends help me with it but he's really busy so hopefully someone here can be of service.

Here it goes:

I got a new computer (an emachine with Windows xp Media Edition) a few months ago and ran Apache on it just perfectly. I was all set to start working on a new layout for my web page when something weird happened with Comcast: they actually kicked me offline for having a virus! I never knew comcast could do that...so I had to go to Best Buy where they swept my entire computer clean and reinstalled all the things the machine came with. Luckily I had back up files of most of my pics and such...but not of Apache of course.

So I had to re-install Apache from its website. This is around where the trouble started.
When I re-installed it, I followed the guidelines that my friend (who has always helped in the past) had written down for me in previous emails. I had saved the emails so that I could refer to them later in case of such things.
I installed Apache 2.0.55, or as the actual file is read: apache_2.0.55-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi to my desktop and then ran the file.
I typed in my information correctly (I even double and triple checked that!), and then continued to install...and Apache ran perfectly fine.

Then, of course, I had to go to the C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf file and modify the httpd.conf file. I copy and pasted what was in an email I received from my friend, which has always been correct in the past and which, previously, I have had NO problem with AT ALL.

However, when I restarted Apache, I got the following message: "The requested operation has failed!"
It hasn't started since then. *cries*

I have tried to do the following to remedy (and possibly understand) what is going on:

1. I tested the Apache Server Configuration
when I did this, it said that there was an error on line 15 of the httpd.conf file. I checked line 15 and didn't see anything out of order, but I was also unsure of what I was looking for, so that didn't much help.

2. I checked the Error Log File
when I did this, this message (among message that were not errors or problems) came up:
[Mon Dec 12 17:29:28 2005] [warn] (OS 995)The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request. : winnt_accept: Asynchronous AcceptEx failed.

What exactly does this mean? I had no clue...

3. I searched for the words "Asynchronous AcceptEx" on google and came up with a few sites that I thought might explain what was going on, but mostly they were just a bunch of people talking about similar problems, rather than a solution to the problem.


Sooo...I still remain lost and need help!
If anyone knows anything about this or has suggestions please let me know. This has been going on for about a month now and I am not a person with money (being a college kid and all), so I can't just have my domain name sit here being unused.
:(

Thanks to anyone who can help me!

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/apache/27907.html

Date: 01/13/06 (IT Professionals)    Keywords: virus, antivirus, web

I'd thought I'd ask around, my users are having problems with \\tsclient\c\whatever being very slow, I'm not sure whether its "by design" or I have interfering stuff like antivirus scans etc going on, suffice to say it can take 1 minute or more just to display the content from any folder.

is there anything I can do to speed this up? otherwise users are currently using outlook web access just to transfer files around.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/itprofessionals/32005.html

Date: 01/08/06 (Computer Help)    Keywords: virus, antivirus, web, yahoo, microsoft, google

On my older computer (a Dell that runs Windows 98), I keep getting invalid page fault errors. Several occur after Windows has loaded:
YOP (that's Yahoo Online Protection)
rundll32
and something called autodown

It also occurs when I startup Internet Explorer, I get that program error message asking me if I want to send data to Microsoft and then the program crashes. I can't access the Internet even though I'm connected.

All the errors say that the program caused an invalid page fault error at module "unknown"

I've tried running anti-virus (AVG) and Ad-aware... I have that computer networked with this one (running Windows XP) and sharing a DSL connection. After some issues in the beginning, I finally got the network up and running so I've been using this computer to download the antivirus programs so I can run them on the other one since I can't get IE to work there at all.
Another thing that may or may not be related: if I uncheck automatically detect settings under LAN settings in internet options, then IE doesn't crash, but the pages won't load.


I'm also having a small, unrelated issue on this computer (the windows XP one). I can't get the internet options setting for "never dial a connection" to stick. I have DSL, so I'm always connected, but certain sites make the dial a connection box pop up. And when I head back to internet options, the "dial whenever a network connection is not present" option is checked off.


Any help or suggestions are much appreciated! I've tried Dell's support website as well as Microsoft's and Googled 'til I couldn't see straight, but I haven't come up with any solutions for my problem.



EDIT: got the first problem solved - uninstalled Yahoo Online Protection and that did the trick!! Still can't figure out what's causing the never dial a connection setting to change. It's frustrating, but I figure it should go away once I delete my AOL account.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computer_help/563008.html

Date: 01/07/06 (Computer Help)    Keywords: virus, spyware

Hello, I’m new to both this community and somewhat to computers, so if a n00b like me isn’t allowed (cause I have no advise) than I’ll leave quietly, unless you don’t mind me watching while trying to learn. Man I wish I weren’t so computer illiterate so when my computer did a hick-up then I’d know what to do except spoon sugar into the floppy drive! Anyway onto the question…

My Windows 98 computer runs great… usually. I run McAfee Viruscan, defrag, disk clean up, and scan-disc on regular occasions and they always say everything is fine. We just recently got Verizon DSL and ever since replacing IE with Firefox the internet runs flawlessly… usually. Since all we run is Word and Internet there is a TON of unused space, which helps keep things running smoothly… usually. Often when we open a new window it freezes and takes about 30sec to get moving, but don’t have any troubles after that. But lately when we open Word it’ll crash (freeze, show this blue screen, and/or need resetting). It has troubles opening up even the smallest of documents, and I don’t know why. It got pretty bad after installing DSL, could that be related? Our viruscan won’t be upgraded with spyware defense for a few weeks, but I’m not getting any pop-ups so could it still be infected?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computer_help/562316.html

Date: 01/17/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: software, virus, spyware

What's the largest number of viruses or spyware you've ever found on a computer?

My Aunt Eva's computer has 366 viruses and 299 instances of spyware infecting it. Prior to my installing a combined anti-virus and anti-spyware software, it seems to have gone unchecked and unprotected since somewhere around 2003.

Crossposted to my LJ and the ComputerGeeks forum

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/862306.html

Date: 11/23/05 (Microsoft Windows)    Keywords: software, virus, spyware

I'm getting DSL, and I've been advised that I need to get serious about protecting my computer. I'm asking for recommendations for anti-virus/firewall/spyware software. Is there anything that does all three? It's always irritated me that I'm expected to buy three kinds of software.

Thanks,
Eric

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/ms_windows/52287.html

Date: 12/11/05 (Mozilla)    Keywords: software, virus, spyware, google

Hi!

I have encountered something strange here using Google and Firefox 1.5. Whenever I'm trying to search for something which contains the word "forum" I get this message:

We're sorry...

... but we can't process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected.

We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your computer is free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.

I have tried it in IE 6 and Opera 7, but I don't get this message using them. What is this? I have scanned my system already for Spyware, but there was nothing major. But I haven't checked for Viruses yet, because it takes long. Well, AntiVir didn't notice anything as I have started (it checks the memory and current processes).

Does anyone else gets this message?

-------------
EDIT:

It seems I'm not the only one who had this problem: Thread in the german Firefox support forum. Now I have cleared the cache and history... and guess what? It works now! :D

But, still, it was somewhat confusing.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/mozilla/342204.html

Date: 12/08/05 (Mozilla)    Keywords: browser, asp, java, security, virus, linux

News of a new security vulnerability has been posted for Firefox 1.5 (my own testing confirms it also affects Firefox 1.0.7, Mozilla 1.7.12, and Camino 1.0b1) that allows for Denial of Service or potentially arbitrary code execution. It has to do with a buffer overflow in the parsing of history.dat, which stores browser history.

Basically, if you visit a malcious site using this vulnerability, the next time you try to start Firefox it will run the malicious code, which could be as minor as causing Firefox not to work (such as the Proof of Concept) or as serious as executing arbitrary code (i.e. it could install a virus or other malware). Fortunately, there is a simple workaround: just set Firefox to keep browser history for 0 (zero) days, essentially setting it not to keep history, and then restart Firefox to make the change take effect. Note that disabling JavaScript DOES NOT mitigate this vulnerability; only disabling browser history does, since that prevents the creation of history.dat. Also note that the malcious code would run each time you attempt to start Firefox, until you delete history.dat from your profile folder.

I don't believe Mozilla has announced anything about this yet, but proof of concept code is available, and I confirmed with my own testing that it works as I described on both Mac OS X and Windows, using both Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 1.0.7, meaning that all versions are probably affected (or at least all recent versions).

Here are the steps to mitigate this vulnerability until a patch is released (for Firefox 1.5):

1. Open Firefox Options (Tools->Options on Windows) or Preferences (Edit->Preferences on Linux, Firefox->Preferences on Mac OS X).
2. Choose "Privacy" from the top button bar, and choose the "History" tab.
3. Set "Remember visited pages for the last ____ days." to 0 (zero).
4. On Windows, click OK to close the Options window. On Linux or Mac, simply close the Preferences window.
5. Restart Firefox to make sure the setting takes effect.

The same steps apply to Firefox 1.0.x, it's just that the options/preferences window is different. Basically, for step 2 the "Privacy" button is on the left side button bar, and history is the top section on that pane.

More details for the technically minded...

X-posted to mozilla

Update 1: My own testing confirms that other Mozilla-based browsers are affected by this vulnerability as well, including Mozilla Suite and Camino. I've also confirmed that this can be exploited without JavaScript (which I already suspected), and it has the same effect as the original PoC. All users of Gecko-based browsers should disable browser history.

Also, Secunia has released an advisory on the issue, but they only mention the DoS aspect, not the possibility of code execution that the original researchers claim is possible. While I can't confirm myself whether or not that is true, it is still certainly a nuisance to have Firefox become unusable, so you should all still protect yourselves.

Update 2: Mozilla has released a statement, claiming that the flaw only causes Firefox and Mozilla to hang for a long time when starting, but that they eventually do start. They also say that they don't think code execution is possible, since the original researchers present no proof of it other than claiming its possible. Though they don't state it, it doesn't sound like they're planning to release a patch anytime soon...

Also, testing confirms that this affects Linux, though depending on the distribution it seems to affect it differently. For example, on Gentoo using the twm window manager, accessing the test case caused the window manager to completely lock up, and then after restarting Firefox wouldn't work. On Fedora Core 4, however, after restarting Gnome (which locked up for me similarly to twm) Firefox did seem to keep working normally. Perhaps the fact that the window managers are locking up is a sign that they can't handle extremely long window titles...

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/mozilla/341566.html

Date: 01/20/06 (Security)    Keywords: virus

Twenty years ago this month the first PC virus was discovered. It's extinct now, but its kin continues to pester computer users.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6028989.html

Date: 01/20/06 (Security)    Keywords: virus, spyware

Dealing with viruses, spyware, PC theft and other digital crimes adds up to a hefty total for businesses.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6028946.html

Date: 01/22/06 (Computer Help)    Keywords: virus

My boyfriend has a WinBook, V Series, purchased in 2004, running Windows XP, model number green733E.

He closed the lid to put the comptuer in 'hibernate' mode and now he CAN'T GET IT OUT of hibernate mode. :( No matter what button he pushes (ctrl+alt+delete... holding down the power button... moving the mouse around) it will not resume normal operating mode.

Trying to provide extra information... he has updated Norton anti-virus... the amount of memory is "a lot" (okay, not helpful)... no new programs installed that I know of.

A few other clarifying statements...

- The Winbook is fully charged. It has been plugged in all night.
- The only thing you can see on the screen is a black screen with a white blinky cursor up in the corner.
- I caught my (average-sized) cat sitting on it (while it was closed)... is it possible that this could affect anything??

Stuck in hibernation!! Any help you can give will be greatly apprciated! Thanks! :)

(x-posted to computerhelp and computersupport)

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computer_help/569203.html

Date: 01/24/06 (Security)    Keywords: virus

Promise of explicit images gets people to click on a malicious attachment, sending a new worm to the top of the worldwide virus charts.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6030129.html

Date: 01/23/06 (Security)    Keywords: security, virus, antivirus

Russian antivirus expert says well-worn stereotypes about cybercrime cloud real issues facing IT security.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6029792.html

Date: 01/25/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: software, virus, spyware

My very new computer works fine, except sometimes it'll suddenly go blue screen for a second and then reboot itself for absolutely no reason I can fanthom (it doesn't happen when I do anything special, actually sometimes it happens when I'm not doing anything at all!). The blue screen that appears is this one.

My computer runs on Windows XP SP2, an AMD 64 CPU, 1 Go of RAM and 2.01 GHz. It's absolutely not a virus or spyware problem because I have softwares against both that I've run on the computer already, and anyway they were installed on the computer before it was connected to the internet for the first time. I believe it's a hardware or an XP problem.

For info, the pieces in my computer are (being French and being more used to solving comp problems in French, I hope I'm getting the vocabulary right - please correct me if something's said wrong):
- Motherboard ASUS A8NE socket 939 (NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Series)
- Sound card integrated to motherboard Realtek ALC850
- CPU AMD 3200 64 bits socket 939
- 2 RAM bars Kingston 512 pc 3200
- Harddrive MAXTOR 200go SATA 7200
- Video card Leadtek 6600-TD 128 PCI Express (WinFast PX6600 TD)


I've looked everywhere, asked every of my computer savvy friends, and we can't figure it out... Does anybody have any clue what might be wrong, or could they redirect me to a community that might be able to help?

Thank you so much.


x-posted to computerhelp, computerjunkies, firmware_3l337, glowingscreens

EDIT : It's not an overheating problem, and the store ran tests on the computer and assure me it's not a memory problem, either...

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/868371.html

Date: 01/25/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: virus, spyware

I've been using AVG Anti-Virus for awhile now and I need something better. I allowed my younger brother to use my computer for homework on a weekend visit and when I came home I found my computer slammed w/ virus and spyware. I need something to rid these things from my computer. Anything will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Casey

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/868853.html

Date: 01/27/06 (Security)    Keywords: virus

Virus is primed to erase important files from infected PCs and may also cause a traffic spike as it propagates itself.

Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6031881.html

Date: 01/27/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: virus

Figures gathered by Telewest [cable internet company] suggest that protecting yourself against viruses, phishing attacks and other mail-borne attacks can be expensive.

The average cost of fixing or replacing a computer infected by a virus comes out as £261.61 [approx $470] according to its estimates.
[source]
That's right, they said average...
I don't know about you but it has never cost me a single penny to fix a virus infected PC. Admittedly I know what I'm doing, but I am guessing the maximum cost should be about £100, £50 for PC World to scan/clean it and £50 for the copy of Norton/McAffee they force upon you. £260 is in the region of "OMG i've got a virus, I can't use this again, must buy a new one from dell..."

(or have I been missing something every-time I've cleaned a PC?)

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/870233.html

Date: 01/28/06 (Computer Help)    Keywords: virus

Hey, silly question... my desktop is getting full, but I’m not sure if I can delete anything. There are the downloaded programs such as ad aware, spybot, viruscan, and firefox, but each one also has an installation icon accompanying it (including Ethernet card setup and something called LiDE). When I try to move those unwanted icons it just makes a copy and leaves it on the desktop, and when I try to recycle them it says, "This is a program. If you remove it, you will no longer be able to run this program or edit some documents." Does this mean it’ll delete the entire program or just the unneeded installation?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computer_help/573485.html