Virus

[Velassra]

Last night while looking up a quest on WoWiki, I got re-directed after a popup....I closed everything down, started to run some scans. (KInd of following Blizzard's CS forum recommendations etc.)

Using AVG freee, Ad-Aware, Spybot and Malwarebytes all 4 come up clean.
Using Processlibrary I get 3 things:

pnkbstra.exe which googled is something to do w/ a game I've never installed or downloaded.

Of more concern were 2:
Sidebar.exe, one being in english and the other in Russian. (I'm not Russian.) So idk if I have something or not. Google results were ify so I don't know. Hope some of you really bright computer guys would have a better Idea.

Also, where would be a good place for someone really computer dumb to get a better idea ofvirus, how they work and where they go in a machine so I have a better idea how to handle thse myself?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Try TrendMicro's Housecall online scan and see what that reports. It's pretty well updated, though slow.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

[ghonosyph]

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure


Shell out the 20 or 30 bucks and get a brand name virus scan instead of being cheap lol a little now will go a long way later if you did catch something :p

[Velassra]

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure


Shell out the 20 or 30 bucks and get a brand name virus scan instead of being cheap lol a little now will go a long way later if you did catch something :p


Actually, from what I've read AVG free edition is better than some other paid ones. There are also some brand names ones you pay for that are garbage.

[Velassra]

Try TrendMicro's Housecall online scan and see what that reports. It's pretty well updated, though slow.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Thanks man for your suggestion. This didn't find anything either. I guess Ima have to assume I didn't get anything. I threw an authenticator on my accounts last night (order it, never activated it lol) but more concerned since I do my banking on this machine.

[Moorea]

microsoft security essential is free too

[jinkobi]

Sounds like malware if you were redirected to another webpage. They hide in things called BHO *Browser Helper Object) and you need a Spyware/Malware remover instead of anti-virus software. You need both AV software AND Spyware remover software to cover all your bases.

Spybot is free (just Google it up) and they'll help you step by step on their site if the software alone doesn't do the job.

Just avoid any strange websites... If you surf the web like most people and just click on any link without reservation you're going to get malware. Don't follow email links from strangers either.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

It really doesn't matter what people tell you about antivirus software in an anecdotal context, except where it relates to how sluggish it makes the system feel.

If you want the hard data on which AV products are the best, go here: http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews

Spend a few hours reviewing the results for those and decide which one does what you need it to do.

[edit] I've been using AVG Free edition for the last 5+ years or so and I've yet to have an infection that AV didn't detect and handle (including a USB key I stupidly used on a college PC without remembering to flip the read-only switch, and a file I downloaded from rapidshare).

[Khatovar]

pnkbstra.exe comes with a lot of games. It's anti-cheat software. If you're not playing one of the games on this list, then I'd probably remove it. http://www.punkbuster.com/

Sidebar.exe has to do with all the gadgets and crap in Vista. It's a default process. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/sidebar-gadgets.aspx

The crap in Russian....beats me. That most certainly needs to be looked deeper into and probably removed.

[Velassra]

Sounds like malware if you were redirected to another webpage. They hide in things called BHO *Browser Helper Object) and you need a Spyware/Malware remover instead of anti-virus software. You need both AV software AND Spyware remover software to cover all your bases.

Spybot is free (just Google it up) and they'll help you step by step on their site if the software alone doesn't do the job.

Just avoid any strange websites... If you surf the web like most people and just click on any link without reservation you're going to get malware. Don't follow email links from strangers either.

Yeah, been using Spybot. It didn't pick up anything. Been using it for years. I had a virus once that although removed, caused soemthing to hang everyonce in a while. Spybot on it's first run through caught w/e it was and cleared it.

Funny thing is, I didn't click anything. I went to WoWiki and before the home page even finished loading it was autoredirected. Otherwise I'm pretty careful w/ what I clik, and never link outa mail;)

[Velassra]

pnkbstra.exe comes with a lot of games. It's anti-cheat software. If you're not playing one of the games on this list, then I'd probably remove it. http://www.punkbuster.com/

Sidebar.exe has to do with all the gadgets and crap in Vista. It's a default process. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/sidebar-gadgets.aspx

The crap in Russian....beats me. That most certainly needs to be looked deeper into and probably removed.

Any tips on how I could look further into it? I wouldnt have a clue how to search for it since I havent any idea on the cyrillic aplphabet.... But yeah, that was the one that had me most concerned, especially after an article I read about a large Ukrainian company, doing some buiseness in the U.S. was sued by the government, since really all it was doing was scareware and selling computers out to botnets or something. (Made me think of Borg from Star Trek lol)

[Khatovar]

You could try running HijackThis http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/

That should at least give a means to look up the process and figure out where to start.