Heads-up to dual-booters...

[jayd512]

I know a bunch of folks here still dual-boot to Windows for whatever reason. But hears just a little warning to all of you. There is a type of malware roaming the interweb that is fairly new... like, in the last 2-3 years type of new, and it's already evolving! You may or may not have seen the screenshots of it, but here's one for you.

LINK

It's a nasty little bugger that's just getting meaner by the year! There is already a 2010 version out that can pop up on you during a random Google search.

The bad part is that, when you see the pop-up, it means that you've already been infected. It has the qualities of spyware in that in can randomly target Windows machines and infect them immediately... but the cruelty of a virus in that it's going to hose the system because there's no real removal method at this point!

Just a heads-up to everybody. Also, pass this along to your Windows using friends and family!

*EDIT*

I hope the Mod's don't mind... I may bump this post once or twice in the next couple of weeks.

[GNU-Fan]

Is 'inable' actually an English word? Funny.

[jayd512]

Is 'inable' actually an English word? Funny.

I dunno... I've never seen it used.

[Freston]

Well, there is 'inability', but in that context and sentence I think the word 'unable' would also be out of place. It reads as a mistranslation of some sort.

But also this

Windows detect unregistered version of 'Antivirus 2009'

Should that not be 'detected'?

It made me think of this, where they look into one of these scams. It also seems similar.

[questio verum]

Is 'inable' actually an English word? Funny.

Good catch. I wonder if that's an authentic screen though. Microsoft usually limits it's blunders to coding & PR.

[hazel]

This reminds me of a hoax email that used to circulate a few years ago; it warned you about a virus going the rounds and helpfully told you how to check if you were infected. There was a particular file you needed to search for. If you found it (and - surprise, surprise! - you invariably did), you had to delete it and then empty the wastebasket so that it couldn't climb back out again.

Of course the file was one of those little pieces without which Windows won't boot. The Microsoft practice of giving them obscure names and carefully not documenting them meant that the user had no idea he was deleting something essential.

[cousinlucky]

Please pardon my ignorance. I still have a windows xp partition on my computer but I never use windows to go onto the Internet. Can my windows partition still get infected with malware anyway?

[jayd512]

So long as it's offline, you're safe! The only other way to get infected would be to transfer an infected file over to your XP partition.

[Jonathan183]

Please pardon my ignorance. I still have a windows xp partition on my computer but I never use windows to go onto the Internet. Can my windows partition still get infected with malware anyway?

I also have a PC with Windows and Linux ... I also do not use Windows on the net. I use physical separation of PC from the net eg I unplug the net connection before booting to Windows. Just incase I forget (or someone else who uses the PC forgets ) I also use ZoneAlarm and have it set to ask for all connections - which I refuse . I have not had problems so far with this strategy ... Just because you don't open IE or outlook does not mean your PC will not try to connect or receive connections from the net ...

[cousinlucky]

I have an old version of the Kerio Firewall on my windows partition. It is set to only allow a few things like Easy office for my letters. I uninstalled most of everything else in windows.

I just got an Ubuntu disk through the mail. I read somewhere that if I install Ubuntu it will wipe out my windows partition.

My suse 10 os is obsolete and is apparently vunerable to something that frezes up my computer while it installs itself in the boot loader. It could be my phone company, ISP, or some government agency.

Whenever it starts I just shut off the external modem and run the automatic repair a few times which usually gets rid of it. It's very annoying though!