A keylogger and a trojan

On the first day of xmas,
my pc gave to me
a keylogger in an email intray.

On the second day of xmas,
my pc gave to me
two backdoor trojans
and a keylogger in an email intray.

That’s what I found today in two different pcs. Wow! Knock me down. I normally keep my pcs clean as a whistle too.

Anyone heard of
spylogger

or

backdoor.hobbit.

Fortunately, I got rid of them quickly enough I think. I still have no idea how they got on my system, email>…?

Kenneth

or websites. Are you using IE? (I’d be surprised, you seem to know your PC stuff); if so get a Mozilla browser.

or websites. Are you using IE? (I’d be surprised, you seem to know your PC stuff); if so get a Mozilla browser.[/quote]
Or Knoppix? :smiley: (It comes with Mozilla :smiley: )

Indeed Mozillla Firefox is the way to go, that and up to date anti-virus softeware, a firewalll and an anti-spyware program of which several are free of charge on the net. Zonealarm at zonelabs.com provides a very good free firewall. If you are not running Service pack 2 for XP then your XP firewall is not up to par. In that case get the free firewall from Zonelabs.

Adaware and Spybot resident are but two anti Spy programs that I would recommend. Keep off Internet Explorer as much as possible and use Firefox. I carry my own lap top and keep up to date with the very latest tools and I still am fiighting the stuff that keeps attempting to invade my machine. The other day I emailed a school for a job and received an automatic reply from them, via their Yahoo mail account that also contained a small text file containing someone’s gripes about the school in question. The email also contained two Yahoo discussion group links that were empty of content but the links did manage to attempt to place a worm on my system, which my defenses caught right away. The worm was trying to email content of my system back to its owner. It was plainly a trojan so be very careful. A key logger will record everything you type and send it back. This is computer land Taiwan and many of them love to play the mean game on the Internet here. Protect your PC’s and be very vigilant about it. Clean your system because it has probably got spyware on it, most PC’s these days do.

I also use the Thunderbird emailer from Mozilla but this thing went right to my Outlook Express which is only configured to receive emails from my pop account back in Canada. It went for what it could penetrate so stay off the Internet Explorer which has Outlook Express seamed into it by default. Best of luck and fight em at every turn I say.

Also get “hijack this”

It’ll pick up stuff that Spybot and Adaware miss. The program will create a list of potential trojans etc. then you can post the list on the forum for “hijack this” and nerds will let you know what you should leave and what you should have hijack this clean up

I fear trying to convert Ken to a Linux system would be like trying to persuade me to vote for George W.

If you’re on dsl, invest in a hardware router which has built-in firewall protection. These costs around NT$1200, but make sure that you get one with an English interface (that’s a little hard to find around here, but not impossible).

Happy holidays, deck the halls with boughs of betelnet, ho ho ho, and all that…

  • Robert

“They’re just jealous because they don’t have three wise men and a virgin in the whole organization.”

  • Mayor Vincent J. `Buddy’ Cianci on the ACLU’s lawsuit to have a city nativity scene removed

thanks for the support guys!

I don’t use IE much anymore anyway, I prefer Opera for browsing, and Firefox for most of the rest.

We already have a hardware firewall, too. SO I was surprised. I think that email was the cause of the problem. Some little attachments in the email.

I did have a program try to install something when I was browsing with firefox, but that stopped it in its tracks.

Yes, email is the most likely cause.

I’d love to try LInux, but have NEVER successfully got one working, even with help and time. They do work, but no sound, poor graphics, etc… mostly these are problems of configuration, but I don’t have the patience to sit throw a large manual of switches to trouble shoot something I have no understanding of. Now if I had a system already running perfectly, I might be encourae dto go the other way… But it’s not been worth it so far.

What about Linspire? Is that any good?

Just think that Linux is beyond my skill level at the moment.

Best Wishes
Kenneth

I shouldn’t think so. Some distros are just not compatible with certain hardware yet.

Hi Kenneth. Why don’t you send me your email address or phone number - next time I’m in Taipei, I’ll be happy to meet with you for an installfest. Only a few people have shown any interest in my previous offers, but I’m willing to help. Linux is changing rapidly - lots of new, easy-to-use distros. For example, I wasn’t able to get power management or wireless working on my IBM X31 Thinkpad when I bought it six months ago, but it works fine now with the latest distros.

I will be in Taipei again on December 30.

My email address: y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net

cheers,
Robert