Have you ever gotten malware?

Malware has existed since the beginning of modern technology, when computers started becoming commonplace in households. As people relied on computers to hold on to the documents they've written, the photo's they've taken, and the software they use... people have made malware that can do damaging things to those files. In recent decades, some malware files have costed billions of dollars in damages to not only home computers, but also servers and even some US government facilities have been affected.

Viruses are a type of malware.

Worms are a type of malware.

Trojans are a type of malware.

Spyware is a type of malware.

Ransomware is a type of malware.

Have you ever gotten affected by malware of any kind?

My previous computer apparently got infected by a virus or two.

I got a very bad viurs very bad I tried to download some game I forgot but it had 500 viurss I'm not sure if it was 500 or 50000 I don't know but my computer almost died

I've dealt with trojans and spyware but that was on my old laptop. On my desktop computer, I may have had a potentially unwanted program (or PUP) but I removed it. That was a long time ago. After that, I never got malware. I also want to let you know that there are other types of malware out there, such as rootkits (malware that allows hackers to take over your machine) and keylogger (keystrokes are forwarded to the hacker). More examples are listed on the website titled "Comodo Antivirus."

https://antivirus.comodo.com/blog/comodo-news/malware-examples-and-their-removal/

I got the most dangerous of them all:

Quote

In a press release dated January 1, 1993, id Software wrote that they expected Doom to be "the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world". This prediction came true at least in part: Doom became a major inconvenience at workplaces, occupying the time of employees and clogging computer networks with traffic caused by deathmatches. Intel and Carnegie Mellon University, among many other organizations, reportedly formed policies specifically disallowing Doom-playing during work hours.

Never have, and hopefully never will.

It all comes down to using common sense and being very diligent when surfing the web.

There was one time when I got a virus that closed any windows that I opened, effectively killing all functionality in Windows. I had to format my PC. Wasn't pretty.

My first computer, wound up getting almost 100k viruses and killed Vista almost completely and had to wipe the drive, I was very computer illiterate at the time and needles to say, I'm far more cautious these days.

When I was a stupid little kid using Kazaa and Limewire, I'd always get malware. "Slipknot - Iowa.exe? Don't mind if I do!" I remember this one time, I'd get hundreds of pop-ups that were just animated GIFs of caterpillars fucking in different positions. Telling my mom about it was pretty awkward. Malware hasn't been a problem for me for well over 15 years now though.

Yes, one time when I had malware, I thought it would be easiest to get rid of it by reinstalling Windows (it was 98 or XP). I thought wrong, as soon as the desktop was visible, Windows was already infected. Porn advertisements were popping up and Windows was unusable. Maybe I reinstalled it again, but this time without having internet connection during & right after install. Alternatively I went to safe mode without internet and deleted all the crap.

I got one on WIndows ME and XP trying to dowload free games and free coins for games, pop up in boot on windows, always changing my internet explorer settings, clossing all specials windows settings. Yeah, i was pretty woried.

On my own computers, no.

Had to clean up messes on other people's computers, hell yes.

Does anyone remember the email worm outbreaks from 2009-12? I got one of those and it was awful. Ive also had friends download literally files that screamed malware while being oblivious in he process. That peeved me off just a little bit.

I mean, i'm sure i did and just didn't know it. But i do remember one specific time that one of my older laptops would act really strange and the settings would constantly change, sound would go in/out, ect. I wiped everything and re-installed Windows XP via the disc i had and it was fine after that. 

I only use MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) as an anti-virus as it's really light weight so i do scans with that as well as Malwarebytes occasionally (CCleaner is good for clearing other things). I don't really have the time to do a fresh install of my current Windows as it's getting to be about a 4 yr old install so i try to make sure that it's running fairly smoothly.

Back when I was somewhere between 7 and 10 years old I got a virus that had a picture of some angry Mexican cartoon man telling some shit in Spanish (no audio, just in the picture) and waving his finger at me if I recall correctly.. I don’t know what it was doing malicious if anything, the window would just move when you tried to close it or ctrl-alt-delete it. I just moved the window down below the start menu after I got it and it didn’t seem to affect anything. A couple months went by and my dad noticed it and somehow took care of it, but it still stands out in my memory.

Years later, in about 2006-2007, my computer data became corrupted and caused me to lose everything, which wouldn’t have mattered too much since it was basically just wads, images and MP3s, but it fucked over a project i had made 10 maps for. The most recent backup id made to another PC only had 5 of those maps saved, so I just said to hell with it. From the wreckage of that project came UAC Rebellion, actually.

6 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Back when I was somewhere between 7 and 10 years old I got a virus that had a picture of some angry Mexican cartoon man telling some shit in Spanish (no audio, just in the picture) and waving his finger at me if I recall correctly.. I don’t know what it was doing malicious if anything, the window would just move when you tried to close it or ctrl-alt-delete it. I just moved the window down below the start menu after I got it and it didn’t seem to affect anything. A couple months went by and my dad noticed it and somehow took care of it, but it still stands out in my memory.

 

Years later, in about 2006-2007, my computer data became corrupted and caused me to lose everything, which wouldn’t have mattered too much since it was basically just wads, images and MP3s, but it fucked over a project i had made 10 maps for. The most recent backup id made to another PC only had 5 of those maps saved, so I just said to hell with it. From the wreckage of that project came UAC Rebellion, actually.

reminds me of this

LOL that’s actually a great comparison! Viruses were more “jokey” back then, from the ones that set out to fuck you to the near-harmless. Now it’s much more cold and utilitarian, to steal your details or access your funds or whatever else without you knowing. Not that I miss them, fuck all viruses and may any programmer of viruses be launched into the sun - There’s an element of nostalgia there though!

Yes, when I was a kid and a filthy pirate.

I used to download all sorts of stuff and thus infected my potato with all kinds of viruses, primarily trojans. I didn't know how to use a PC at first either (at the very beginning I had like 4 AV software installed so... ), but I have not had problems in years after that, because I'm a lot more careful at what I download and what pages I visit.

I used to download a lot of malware on my first laptop, 7 years ago when I didn't know anything about internet.

I wish Arch-Vile Malware didn't exist.

The worst malware I got was around 9 years ago after downloading an older version of Zoom video player, of all things. It was from a regular looking website too. Kept redirecting my browser to some destination whenever I tried any URL, but my NoScript was at least keeping the page from running anything. Couldn't remove it with my Anti-Virus nor SpyBot, which I had at the time. Think I used another PC to download MalwareBytes, move it over to the infected one, and that got rid of it.

Had a few minor infections in 2009-2010 that were no big deal, as I was able to clean them up with the free versions of MalwareBytes and Spybot Search and Destroy. It was around 2010 or so that I moved over to Kaspersky, and was able to clean up some stuff that the other software had previously missed. The worst thing I ever had to deal with was a Rootkit in mid-2010 or so (I think) that locked up my keyboard when I tried to start my PC, and prevented my anti-virus software from even starting. I think I had to restart Windows in safe mode, boot up Kaspersky from there, and tinker with some different settings before I was able to restart Windows normally and run Kaspersky so that it could get rid of the damn thing.

Pretty sure I haven't had any real headaches from malware since then. I'm generally pretty careful.

After using Avast for a long time I found that it allowed malware onto my current Windows 10 PC, because of this along with my dissatisfaction of Avast for a while before this happened for a number of other reasons I just stopped using it.

Like Spectre01 mentioned, I've also had those annoying browser hijackers a couple times that would redirect you to some shitty site or you'd get a zillion pop-up ads all over your screen driving you crazy trying to get rid of them or it would make a bunch of tabs. Ahh the good olde days.

I had a virus one time that I have no idea what it was doing other than making my PC slow as shit. I had to downgrab a removal tool and that nuked whatever it was. That was many years ago.

I probably had more than that but I just don't remember.

The worst malware I ever got was on a flash drive, but I had no clue how it got there. Fortunately, all it did was make all my folders hidden and replace them with fake junk ones with the same names.

I've also had one of those browser hijackers before, it looked like this:

...looks oddly familiar to me now that I think about it :P

Not in a decade. I do a malware and virus check every month, but for the most part I've uninstalled all antimalware and antivirus programs and I've been fine. Avast got very annoying after I recommended it for years to people. Other than that I just use MalwareBytes. With a lot of elderly people and kids in my family, I'm surprised they don't get malware or viruses either. You'd think they'd download something stupid or questionable that turns out to be a virus, but nope. A lot of the malware in the past came in email .exe's now they just don't.

There are browser hijackers especially on imgur where you go from Imgur... and now you're on some different page telling me I have a virus. Wikia was impossible due to how the ads slowed everything. Metacritic is such an ad haven I'm shocked that it's the standard for reviews. I had to finally install AdBlocker... now AdBlocker is the annoyance, not the ads. It opens up a new window to let me know X has been destroyed, but if I go pro they'll have cloud backup for me!

My aunt and uncle fell into a hell of a ransomeware a few years ago. It was quite entrenched. Prevented the PC from doing anything at all. All browsers went to their page for removal of the virus under the disguise of an antivirus. Changed their background wallpaper to an advertisement for the antivirus.

It was our very first desktop PC bought in 2003 (Win XP, 96mb RAM, 1.26ghz CPU, 32mb vidcard "prosavage ddr" i think). Then we didn't have internet yet, so PC was safe with Quake II, Serious Sam encounters' sessions and some of my mom's work. Parents bought laptop with mobile modem in 2007, so in 2009, when i moved to city because of college, i took that oldie desktop with me. Finally it got first taste of internet. uTorrent, emule crashed everytime when DL speed reached 4-5MB/s. After small virus threat i installed Avira, but it made PC boot times to minimum 30 minutes! In early 2010 i was enough of that slow nightmare and uninstalled Avira. Days or weeks later it came... virus, that would create over hundred of processes named something like "0D93J6ER.EXE". After i kill some, new ones appear. I don't remember did i try to install antivirus again or not, but i remember i gave up on that PC.

Big fan of malware here, quite fascinated by it actually especially older MS-DOS viruses mainly because of their creativity but I've never been infected by malware ever since I bought my own computer back in 2003.

@Doomkid Could it be this one perhaps?

This channel is awesome by the way, I recommend it.

^ Lol, that's in Turkish. But I guess any scary big-moustached dude must be Mexican to US eyes. The guy's simply saying something along the lines of "Hands off! You're that rat! Get out of the way! Who am I talking to? Let me out of here!"

1 hour ago, geo said:

I had to finally install AdBlocker... now AdBlocker is the annoyance, not the ads.

Get rid of AdBlocker, and AdBlock Plus for those who use it.

Adblock Plus is particularly awful nowadays as it only blocks certain ads and allows others. Get uBlock Origin instead, smarter and blocks all ads.

3 hours ago, Avoozl said:

After using Avast for a long time I found that it allowed malware onto my current Windows 10 PC, because of this along with my dissatisfaction of Avast for a while before this happened for a number of other reasons I just stopped using it.

I've also had issues with Avast. It eventually glitched and I started seeing 3 processes running (which also caused my PC to hang on restart... ).

After I moved to something else I realized what a resource hog it was as well. I wouldn't recommend it.

6 hours ago, CyberDreams said:

I only use MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) as an anti-virus as it's really light weight so i do scans with that as well as Malwarebytes occasionally (CCleaner is good for clearing other things). I don't really have the time to do a fresh install of my current Windows as it's getting to be about a 4 yr old install so i try to make sure that it's running fairly smoothly.

Would definitely not recommend that either. MS made vast improvements to the built-in protection on W10 but MSE is terrible, I remember seeing statistics and the detection rate for malware was pretty awful. You're better using something else instead.

49 minutes ago, Uni said:

Big fan of malware here, quite fascinated by it actually especially older MS-DOS viruses mainly because of their creativity but I've never been infected by malware ever since I bought my own computer back in 2003.

 

This channel is awesome by the way, I recommend it.

Me too, Dan has some pretty fascinating stuff. "Old school" malware was pretty interesting (and destructive, see CIH), nowadays it's more concerned about making you pay the creators to regain access to your files than immediately wreak havoc everywhere.

1 hour ago, Uni said:

Big fan of malware here, quite fascinated by it actually especially older MS-DOS viruses mainly because of their creativity but I've never been infected by malware ever since I bought my own computer back in 2003.

 

@Doomkid Could it be this one perhaps?

 

 

This channel is awesome by the way, I recommend it.

LOL thank you for finding this! I could have sworn he had a sombrero, but I guess my memory falsely added that detail in.. As a dumb kid I thought it was Spanish which is hilarious to me now since it's so obviously NOT Spanish. I don't remember it being quite so malicious either with taking away mouse control and whatnot but obviously I was wrong on that too!