MSN Virus

[ericfourfour]

If you get an instant message saying, "Is this a picture of you", do not open it!

Last night (this morning) at around 1:00am I was sent an instant message saying, "is the a picture of you?" (something like that) accompanied by a link from a friend. Naturally, I clicked the link. Next thing I know there are all of these exe's coming up onto my desktop. After that windows to all of my contacts were opened and then Windows Live Messenger exited. I assume they were sending the exact same message I recieved. Now my computer was running slower than usual so I just shut it down and thought, "I'll fix it tomorrow".

So today instead of fixing it I went on msn and got everything cleared up with my contacts. It appears that they got the message from me. And the friend who sent me the message said he got it from someone else.

The next thing I did is a system recovery to get my computer properly working again.

Once it was up and running I decided to go onto msn. Well, as soon as I double-clicked the Icon the virus reinstalled itself. That pissed me off royally.

I just ended up uninstalling msn and doing a recovery. That is the last time I use MSN until I know this virus is completely off my computer.

[md]

ericfourfour wrote:

If you get an instant message saying, "Is this a picture of you", do not open it!

Last night (this morning) at around 1:00am I was sent an instant message saying, "is the a picture of you?" (something like that) accompanied by a link from a friend. Naturally, I clicked the link. Next thing I know there are all of these exe's coming up onto my desktop. After that windows to all of my contacts were opened and then Windows Live Messenger exited. I assume they were sending the exact same message I recieved. Now my computer was running slower than usual so I just shut it down and thought, "I'll fix it tomorrow".

So today instead of fixing it I went on msn and got everything cleared up with my contacts. It appears that they got the message from me. And the friend who sent me the message said he got it from someone else.

The next thing I did is a system recovery to get my computer properly working again.

Once it was up and running I decided to go onto msn. Well, as soon as I double-clicked the Icon the virus reinstalled itself. That pissed me off royally.

I just ended up uninstalling msn and doing a recovery. That is the last time I use MSN until I know this virus is completely off my computer.

Never open links sent to you without asking what it is AND getting an answer that makes sense. I've seen so many people just blindly click links it's dumb-founding.

Oh, and run linux! None of those MSN viruses will effect you (yet...) and there are plenty of good clients, like Gaim!

[bugzpodder]

google it
http://www.trendmicro.com.au/consumer/vinfo/encyclopedia.php?LYstr=VMAINDATA&VName=WORM_KELVIR.EH

[ericfourfour]

Wow, bugzpodder that is exactly what it was.

When I make my own computer I'm going to put Linux on it. This computer is technically my families so I don't wanna screw it up by messing around with OS's (although I may have a higher risk of screwing it up by just running Windows ).

[Andy]

"when i make my computer"....

by make, you mean assemble right?

[bugzpodder]

i know many disagrees with me, but windows >>>> linux

[ZeroPaladn]

yeah, but mac > windows. Mosre stable, less viruses, and you can have your precious windows too.

EDIT:

@ CompWiz - Sorry.

[apomb]

lets not turn this into a winders vs every other OS out there ... there are already toooo many of those already just listen to md on this one and move on people, get linux period.

[Mazer]

Your operating system is hardly a factor. Pebkac. What you (everyone) must figure out is that you shouldn't blindly click on links. This "MSN virus" has been around for... at least a few years now in various forms.
What always troubled me was that the question was really stupid. Why shouldn't a friend be able to identify you in a picture? Getting a similar message from several other people at the same time doesn't make me less suspicious either.

[War_Caymore]

this is pretty recent. i read the virus damage potential and it's not all that threatening. it just slaps malware on your comp and slows it down. then again, getting more than one of these or similar ones at the same time, would be very bad and require you to *gulp* wipe your computer.

[md]

MSN virii have been around for a long, long time. Two, three years at least. The problem is always operator stupidity. People click links, and press OK on pop-ups without even reading them. I've seen otherwise highly intelligent people (engineers even... which is actually a bit worrying) click links without checking to see if they should, and getting their computer hosed because of it.

[ericfourfour]

It was 1:00am so obviously I was not paying attention. So I'm going to have to go with what md said. It was operator stupidity.

And for what War_Caymore said. I didn't wipe my computer I did a recovery. It simply restores your computer to a previous state. Sure some of your programs may not work, but you still have all of you documents. I had to do this recovery. I tried installing Norton Antivirus (piece of ****) can't even do what it was made for.

Finally, this is only the second time I've had a virus and I havn't been using antivirus software until yesterday (and I'm probably going to remove it too). Both times it was stupidity.

The moral of the story is, if you can avoid being stupid you should be able to avoid virii.

[War_Caymore]

i hooked up a system scan of my computer when i hooked up to the internet and e-mailed everyone about this virus. someone told me that they didn't open it becuase it might be a virus so it's good to know taht at least ONE of the 30 people i sent it to is a little caucious.

the computer that was initialy hooked up to the internet dietected a certain virus called "Aviar" (or worm i should say) we got a system recovery but it's still in there! we tried to get rid of it with what antivirus we have but to no avail.

apparanly the worm opens up the P2P program that is initialy installed onto your computer and uses it as a host to recieve and send itself, viruses, malware, spyware, you name it. any options?

[ZeroPaladn]

Worse comes to worse, Re-Install Windows XP. Its long, its boring, and (im not really sure about this) it can delete all files not required for the OS (all video games, MSN, Documents, pictures, you get the idea). Im no sure if theres an option for this, or anything like that, but it is a sure fire thing.

on another note of keeping your stuff, get some programs that deal specificaly with malware/spyware. Ad-Aware isn't too bad.

[War_Caymore]

i've got ad-aware and spyware doctor. usualy if one dosen't get rid of whatever, the other one will.