Seriously, has anybody ever seen a serious virus problem in Windowswhen using AV protection?

RayLopez99 wrote:
Seriously, has anybody seen--or even heard--of a serious virus
(including rootkit or malware) problem in Windows when using
commercial antivirus protection?


Seriously, are you having a laugh?

--
SteveH

In article 8d9a4f53-14ac-40a3-9cb4-105fb0e08a00
@g11g2000yqe.googlegroups.com, says...

Seriously, has anybody seen--or even heard--of a serious virus
(including rootkit or malware) problem in Windows when using
commercial antivirus protection?

One of the claims of the Linux crowd is that such problems are
legion. But talking so some of the people at alt.comp.anti-virus I
get the impression such problems are rare.

Who is more right?

BTW, check out this PDF on AV softwa
http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=htt...eAjzJKL ymkDA

It compares 16 commercial programs, and finds Microsoft at #2,
catching 60% of all viruses (Avanti is #1 at 70%). And we're taking
about all viruses, some of which as so obscure I'm sure you'll never
seen one in the wild...

RL

In the 30+ years I've been working with computers I've had exactly 1
malware on a computer that I own or manage for clients - that's
thousands of workstations and hundreds of servers over that time.

In the case of the 1 malware, the machine was not secured, was basically
behind a NAT, using Local Admin, and was running Symantec End Point
Protection 11.0.4 (or 11.4.0, can't remember) - the malware gained
complete control of the machine in seconds after being redirected to a
malicious website.

I switched to Avira Antivir and connected to the same website and the
malware was blocked - I have moved myself and clients to Avira and not
had any infections.

We test with 5 malware scanners monthly.

--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
(remove 999 for proper email address)

On Tuesday 23 March 2010 07:51 RayLopez99 wrote:

Seriously, has anybody seen--or even heard--of a serious virus
(including rootkit or malware) problem in Windows when using
commercial antivirus protection?

A good question, but perhaps you are asking the wrong people?
Would it be better (just as an example) to address your question to
Manchester City Council or to the Greater Manchester Police?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...er/8492669.stm

It is of course quite possible that the administrators were not so
knowledgable as yourself, and would therefore benefit from your advice.
Judging by the cost of outbreaks like these, I'm sure you could make a lot
of money - the cost seems to work out at about £1,000,000 a time to clean
up the mess.
Go for it :-)

I have to run Win7 @ work. At home I run Opensuse 11.2. I have run Linux
@ home since 1998. I have never had a virus or malware take down a linux
system. However, on my job I clean literally dozens of infected M$
machines weekly. Some of them are pretty nasty too. So far, I haven't
gotten my work machine infected . . . so far . . .

We try to convince our customers to lock down their users to help limit
their rate of infection but they usually don't take our suggestions. Users
with administrator rights exacerbate the virus/malware problems. Although,
a machine can be infected with a user limited to "user" level access, the
infection is usually much less severe and easier to clean up. Anyway,
malware/viruses are a M$ fact of life and I've just gotten used to dealing
with it. . . . Helps "pay the rent" too . . . heh!

BB

RayLopez99 wrote:

Seriously, has anybody seen--or even heard--of a serious virus
(including rootkit or malware) problem in Windows when using
commercial antivirus protection?

One of the claims of the Linux crowd is that such problems are
legion. But talking so some of the people at alt.comp.anti-virus I
get the impression such problems are rare.

I was running AVG ver. 8 and got some malware that hogged all the CPU
time. It caused operation to slow so much that I couldn't run the
computer and had to transfer the HD to a computer with a dual core
CPU. A full scan with AVG indicated the problem but couldn't fix it.
Norton detected nothing, and free online scans by Trend and PC Pit
Stop didn't fix it (I don't remember if they detected it), but Bit
Defender partially did, and the rest of the problem was solve with
either ComboFix or SmithFraudFix.

Per RayLopez99:
Seriously, has anybody seen--or even heard--of a serious virus
(including rootkit or malware) problem in Windows when using
commercial antivirus protection?

Yes but....

The AV popped it's "Warning" dialog on an incoming email message,
*but* the user did not heed that dialog and took the trouble to
click whatever button told the AV to ignore the virus instead of
clicking the default button which told the AV to delete the
virus.
--
PeteCresswell

On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:51:55 -0700 (PDT), RayLopez99 wrote:

Seriously, has anybody seen--or even heard--of a serious virus
(including rootkit or malware) problem in Windows when using
commercial antivirus protection?

It happens all the time.
Usually brought in from outside sources and when the person
bypasses the checking.

It's like everything else in the world, you can't prevent an idiot
from circumventing the tools put in place to protect him.

On Mar 23, 11:11*am, peterwn wrote:
On Mar 23, 8:51*pm, RayLopez99 wrote:

Seriously, has anybody seen--or even heard--of a serious virus
(including rootkit or malware) problem in Windows when using
commercial antivirus protection?

Yes. *I had to clean up a Windows laptop last year despite things
being kept up to date and AV installed. *The AV was bloody hopeless at
setecting it despite being kept up to date.

OK fine. Outlier. One in a million I would reckon.

Tell us what virus it was, as that info should not be confidential.
Unless it was so obscure that only one user, your client, had it.

Anybody else?

RL

On Mar 23, 2:08*pm, Leythos wrote:
In the 30+ years I've been working with computers I've had exactly 1
malware on a computer that I own or manage for clients - that's
thousands of workstations and hundreds of servers over that time.

In the case of the 1 malware, the machine was not secured, was basically
behind a NAT, using Local Admin, and was running Symantec End Point
Protection 11.0.4 (or 11.4.0, can't remember) - the malware gained
complete control of the machine in seconds after being redirected to a
malicious website.

I switched to Avira Antivir and connected to the same website and the
malware was blocked - I have moved myself and clients to Avira and not
had any infections.

We test with 5 malware scanners monthly.

Thank you Sir. You are a scholar and a gentleman. A true voice of
reason in a wilderness of babbling buffoons and hominid baboons.

RL

On Mar 23, 3:24*pm, "larry moe 'n curly"
wrote:

I was running AVG ver. 8 and got some malware that hogged all the CPU
time. *It caused operation to slow so much that I couldn't run the
computer and had to transfer the HD to a computer with a dual core
CPU. *A full scan with AVG indicated the problem but couldn't fix it.
Norton detected nothing, and free online scans by Trend and PC Pit
Stop didn't fix it (I don't remember if they detected it), but Bit
Defender partially did, and the rest of the problem was solve with
either ComboFix or SmithFraudFix.

What OS? What year? What was the name of the virus if I can ask?
That sounds incredible.

RL