Looking for viruses and spyware!

xSamhainx

Paws of Doom
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October 18, 2006
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Well, my Frankenstein test pc is up and running. As I was talking about in another thread, I acquired an older p4 and have cloned a perfect windows xp installation on another partition, so that I can take it back to that state at will.

The purpose of this computer is to test out software, mess w/ different windows utilities and such, and take on virus and spyware challenges. The first test yesterday was a trial run of sorts, testing this hdclone program's effectiveness and seeing if the partition replacement plan would work. It was a success, went off without a hitch. So for the maiden voyage I went around the net and put on as many toolbars as I could find. In about 20 mins, the toolbars in IE were almost down to the bottom of the browser, it was hilarious! Even funnier was that they were all freaking out over each other, everytime I'd install one I'd get ten frantic notifications coming out of everywhere that another was wanting to set my homepage, default search, etx etx.

I was trying to get a quick screenshot of it for posterity but then i suddenly started being attacked left and right by all kinds of crazy system errors, it was like a major toolbar war was going on behind the scenes. If one couldnt have me, nobody could - IE wouldnt load at all, then the system started locking up tight. So, i reboooted and ran HDClone, and redid the partition.

so basically, im putting out a call for confirmed virus and spyware sources. If you get one and know where you got it, or you have bits and pieces of one in quarantine that you want to hook me up w/ I'm looking to test all the free antivirus progs one by one and check out how they do timing/detection/invasiveness/user friendliness etx. Send me a pm or soemthing
 
Joined
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You're a better man then I am. I used to work for a small computer/printer repair shop and most of what I did was try and fight this shit. The spyware is absolutely brutal though it seems as though it's gotten a bit more subtle since I left the business.

Anyways, I'm usually pretty careful when it comes to viruses and spyware, so I normally don't get into trouble. I use AVG which seems to do a good job at preventing those sort of drive-by downloads, along with Mozilla preventing most pop-ups except for the type that occur if you click anywhere.

Good luck, and be sure you post your results. You have my appreciation.
 
Joined
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Install "Ad-Aware" and "Spybot Search & Destroy", these cover most of all Spyware/Adware/Trojans.

Plus one or more freeware Virus-Scanners. (Commercial ones would be much better, of course.)
 
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I'm not looking for spware/virus monitors, i'm looking for confirmed sources/sites where the actual malware is found, so I can test the effectiveness of certain programs in battling it. As for my opinion of best spyware killers, I'd have to agree on Spybot, but Adaware has been kicked off my machine due to low detection rate, slow scanning, and it's got services that run when it isnt even open. That's a big no-no in my opinion, I dont want services always running. I'd recommend Superantispyware, it catches things that Ive seen breeze by both Spybot and Adaware, and no services when the program isnt open.

Along w/ the malware tests, I'm also just trying out various other types of software so that I'm not install/uninstalling back and forth w/ tons of stuff on my gaming pcs, thus leaving holes in the registries and such and a bunch of junk all over the place.

If anyone's got a program that they dont want to install on their pc, but want me to scope out for them let me know I'll give it a whirl on Frankenstein
 
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I have heard good things of www.virustotal.com

I have never used it this far, though.
 
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Well, besides personal edification and havin fun (yes i have fun doing this sort of thing!) I'm also gearing up to start my own tech support side business, so yeah - i guess any leads on new stuff would be beneficial as well.

Online scanner is a good idea, since like a "portable" application, no install is required. Working on a crippled pc is tough enough, trying to actually install somethng is murder if even possible. Then again, a lot of malware tends to target networking...
 
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Sorry for OffTopic,
I reformatted my PC a couple of months ago and I haven't installed any antivirus yet,I just scan every 3 days with Spybot.
I'm an experienced user and I don't visit suspicions sites nor download risky stuff.Do you think I'm reckless?
Again sorry for offtopic.
 
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Dear Green Place
spybot's good for catching spyware, and it has a good "immunization" feature (basically adds urls to your host file, looping and effectively blocking them) as well, which i'm sure you know about.

Reckless? Well, I went without any av for literally years and was fine... until i contracted a healthy virus from I dont know where and it was a nightmare. I'm of the opinion that if you have an insular, protected zone of a few sites that you visit and such you should be fine. But if you like to go adventuring on the net, youre just asking for trouble!
 
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For system recovery, Knoppix boot disk (free) and Active@Boot Disk (pay). Those are both nice programs that might come in handy if you start working on peoples' computers.

http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Just a few suggestions. Just to mention, the demo Active@Boot Disk is practically worthless; it's pretty truncated. That's one that's just worth buying, IMO. I guess the demo is meant to show you what it can do, but if you actually want to make any meaningful changes to a computer, you need to buy it.
 
Joined
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Columbus, OH USA
Try astalavista.com. I haven't been there in a long time, but it always used to be virus/hacker central on the Web. I couldn't be sure, but I once thought I picked up a trojan there. If nothing else, you'll find plenty of pointers to infected sites.
 
Joined
Nov 11, 2006
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Orange County, California
Toolbar heaven, lol! I should make a video of this, it's more effective w/ all the scrolling text and stuff.

I love this kinda stuff, great fun. You guys are missing out on the Sri Lanka Toolbar

Now im gonna run some spyware prog tests and see what happens. Avira freaked the hell out when i was installing half of them, I finally had to turn it off
 

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Joined
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so basically, im putting out a call for confirmed virus and spyware sources.

If you're still looking for studying material, you could try to search the net with keywords 'virii archive' and you will find whatever you don't need. I will not be held liable for any damages... I don't actually know if it is legal (in your country or mine) to offer harmful software on the net.
 
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