So I've got a virus....

[lRookiel]

One time my mom came downstairs and started yelling at me for getting a virus on the computer which made it completely unusable.

Oh the blame you get for being the one who uses the computer the most eh? I get this all the time, usually from my nan.

"A virus is on my computer and its your fault!"
"Erm, nan, I don't use your computer, I use mine"
"Well somethings wrong with it and you use the internet all the time"
"Well lets have a look at it then, hey, what's *obscure name.exe*"
"I downloaded that so I could play scrabble online".

...
I hate people.

I do believe I got the blame for that once. On my families first pc when I was about 8 or 9, my big brother clicked on a bad popup (Which contained some strange popup spamming virus) and he told my parents it was me, I got the blame for it until I said "But he was on the pc all day, not me" and since I'm the 'Good' child, my parents sided with me hahah!

week long ban for my brother after that, mouahaha!

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I dont get hit by virus's because I use kaspersky internet security.... I did get hit by hijacker malware which I cleared out with high jack this.

 

[MagicMouse]

I don't personally get any nasty viruses, maybe a Trojan here and there. However, some of the ones I have removed form clients' PC's have been really nasty. The worst one was the latest form of windows 7 rootkit. Virtually impossible to remove without reformatting. Apparently the point of the virus was to hook the PC up to a botnet.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Time to backup, format, reinstall :-\ Hate it!

My brother, years ago brought a virus back home from uni on his laptop. Spread over the network and nothing I did could shift it. No A/V software seemed able to remove it as it went from one file to the next, computer to computer, never staying "fixed" or deleted for long enough. In the end I think I had to delete a ton of data, take all PCs off the network, fdisk and reformat then resintall totally fresh each one. Nightmare.

 

[shroomie]

I got attacked by something that got into my instant messaging software, like all of it and it would send bogus links to everyone on my contact list. Eventually sorted it out by doing a system restore to reset things back to before it got installed.

 

[Wintermoot]

system restore?
or get avast to fix it until you get a decent virus scanner (like NOD32)

 

[wraithian]

For you folks running into viruses that fly under the radar...

Run a couple of anti-virus programs. Norton, AVG, Stopsign (just dated myself with that one), or even MS Security Essentials, any combination, and yeah, sometimes you'll have to uninstall one of them to get another one to load and/or work properly, but your chances of missing something nasty are reduced. Follow those up with Malwarebytes (I seriously cannot preach my love for Malwarebytes enough), Spyware S&D, Adaware, and there shouldn't be much harmful stuff left on your machine. And, as has been noted above, when all else fails, f-bomb (reformat your hard drive) malware back to the stone age.

I'm in IT for the government, and these are some of the steps we go through when someone picks up something ugly.

 

[Cpu46]

Last virus I had was one of those false virus scan things. It was sophisticated enough that it blocked me from opening anything other than internet explorer and was bundled with the virus that changes your google search results.

Safe mode, malwarebytes, problem solved.

 

[Zenn3k]

Stop using Windows.

problem solved.

 

[Michael Hirst]

Download a Bullguard free trial, that really managed to unfuck one of my previous computers when it was riddled with viruses.

 

[Lord Kloo]

System restore works fine usually as long as you do it as soon as you know you've got a virus, better than a complete restore to factory settings..

I genuinely don't know how to get viruses or Trojans or whatever on ones computer, hell I'm even running my Vista laptop with UAC turned off (to play modded Oblivion naturally) which opens up the system to all sorts of shizzle..

 

[The Undoer]

Its the virus that makes you think something is wrong with your PC and asks you to download a fake Virus protection to get rid of it. You buy it and it drains the money out of your account and nothing happens. The bastards that made it should have the good sense to at least let you get rid of it to make it seem real, morons.

I've had that one, it let me have a quick google search though and find a solution, stopped the process in task manager then proceeded to hunt down and find every file related to it and incinerate them.

I've also had one that turned off my PC the moment that windows launched, that one I had to reinstall, nothing else could be done.

 

[Shadu]

I work at a laptop center at my school where we provide support for all the laptops the school provides to the students.

I see viruses all the time. Not even joking.

It's not usually too bad, except there's been a new one that came onto the scene just a few weeks ago that's just evil. And it's already changed so we have to adjust and relearn what we thought we knew.

 

[ElNeroDiablo]

Oh, I just remembered some fun I keep having in regards to viruses - note, I haven't had it hit my Windows system directly yet, but there's a reason for this - I have a friend who doesn't have net atm (or even a landline) so he often uses the local library in town here and over in the nearby city. EVERY friggen time he's plugged his thumb drives into a computer at either library I have to plug them into my Linux system and REFORMAT the fuckers (backing up the true data he has on there) to clear off the viruses that try to infect system by copying themselves to USB drives (only memory sticks, not seen this happen to an external hard drive) before he goes home and plugs the drive into his WinXP box I built for him (on a old Optiplex GX520).
Every. Single. Time.

I just wish I could stop having to reformat his thumb drives each time he's over, but that'd require long talks with the IT staff (what little there is) at BOTH libraries in order to get them to actively cleanse their systems or (what'd be better) have them move completely to Linux-based systems (say, Ubuntu) so these damn things stop trying to infect my friend's system and any other system those thumb drives come in contact with!

 

[Necroid_Neko]

That steam hack scared me. I started changing all my passwords. After changing my email password I remembered I never registered for the forums. Then I forgot my email password...

I didn't register on the forums either, but the hack entered some of the servers where the main details were stored, so changing your emails and stuff was actually a really good idea :/

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

You should stop watching those videos then.

I have had one nasty virus. It was a virus posing as anti virus software saying I needed to get rid of a virus I didn't have. Up until the virus of the anti virus.
Then I installed Norton Anti Virus. Problem solved.

I got that a few weeks ago. Nearly fell for it despite being suspicious the entire time. The address it redirected me to was called dopesmokingmonkeys and that confirmed my distrust.

 

[Knusper]

The old computer my family had got a virus, but I was quite small, so all I remember was my dad running loads of scans and purging what he could.

I've never had one for my current computer, and I've had it for 2 or 3 years now. I just keep Microsoft Security Essential running constantly and scan everything even remotely suspicious I download. Works well for me.

 

[Scarim Coral]

While I have gotten a few viruses in the past but only one of them mess up my pc. This happen many years ago during the days of 56k modern.
The virus pretty much made me use the Start toolbar more to access the internet because the pc crash whenever I double click IE. Also the virus just happen to be the contaminated type as I accidently spread it to my two mates pc's when I burn Red vs Blue episodes onto a disc for them to watch.
Anyway I was able to get rid of it (the anti virus softwares I had did not detect it) once I install AVG into it (which is the reason what it's my favourite anti virus software to use).

 

[Rule Britannia]

Avast is pretty good and it's free

 

[Racecarlock]

Twice I have gotten a fake scanner trojan from tv tropes. Kaspersky caught it both times, but not before it made windows wonder "Which program do I open exe files with again?" and I end up having to right click and then click start on free error cleaner so it fixes the thing again. I don't care how fun the site is, I'm not going back until they install some damn security on the thing.