do viruses only come from websites

[mrs_d]

hi what i need to know is do viruses only come from websites. i reinstalled xp on my sons pc and within a few days he had the virus again. he said he did not visit any dodgy websites. i thought the best way to kill viruses was to reinstall but do i need to use a new hard drive or is it that he must of visited a webpage to pick it up. when i rewrote it i put ms secruity essenstionals as a av protecter which works fine on my pc. the virus he got was one of those av ones.

thanks

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Mrs D, virus' or indeed all malware can get on to a computer from many sources, which does of course include websites, but at the moment the one single source that seems to be the worst, is what is known as peer to peer websites and the programs that need to be installed to use those sites.

It is not so much the site itself or the program, it is the so called free data downloaded from these places.

Those wishing to get at your cash by whichever scam they pull, through forcing an install of malware onto your computer love peer to peer. All they do is put up a file, it could be a supposedly free to all video, music, or even a game or program. In reality it is any one of the malwares that are around.

One of the most popular peer to peer sites is called "Limewire" but there are many others.

If your son has been using that or similar, it is odds on that is where the virus or malware came from.

There are of course many other sources, and the next most popular way to be stung is by E Mail and links to be clicked or attachments to be opened, being the way the malware gets in.

Have a look at our recommended security software for ideas of what to install to help protect the computer, but above all else, sensible browsing is the best way to avoid problems.

to learn more do have a look here-

How did I get infected?

 

Once your son has seen and I hope learned from this, the safest bet is to again reinstall the operating system to start from a clean slate again.

Nev.

[Synapse]

A good free antivirus program will stop a p2p download that is infected. Avast and Avira are my personal favourites, and MS Security Essentials is nice one too.

 

Also, it depends what you mean by viruses. In the loosest sense of the description it covers anything picked up from a website, downloaded through p2p or loaded from a fake CD etc.

 

A large number of the website type infections are known as spyware, their aim is to cause havoc and make you pay your money for a fake licence that will clean up your computer. They are very common, especially so in the younger generations of computer users.

 

Try installing McAfee Siteadvisor, it tells you what sites are safe and what are not. The tough bit is educating your son to take note of it.

 

By the way, you don't need to install a new hard drive, just reinstall Windows.

[RandyL]

I agree with all of the above. I do have a couple additional points to make though.

 

A good AV will flag most viruses and trojans but if the user allows a downloaded file to open or allows bundled software that comes with malware then in effect that person has allowed the infection to bypass security.

 

Peer to peer as Plastic Nev noted can infect via both methods. In particular downloaded RAR files seem to be the most common method of transfering malware through Peer to Peer.

 

Social networking sites such as Facebook are another cause if one clicks on malicious links or downloads attachments through such. Again just using caution is the key.

 

Look at some of the threads in one of our sections.

Security Warnings and Alerts

[Dalo Harkin]

The Main way to 'let a virus loose' is with an .exe

 

Not all Virus's are designed the same and all the previous info is right, but they are some not mentioned, while P2P is the biggest method for virus's to travel the web, they are normally disguised as video files, program exe's etc.

 

Do not install anything that you do not know the source, and if you have an incling something is didgy then have your AV check it before you launch the exe.

 

99.9% of Virus's can be killed with a reformat, virus's are not as common as they once were and its now more malware/spyware related which in most cases can be more dangerous and are harder to spot. If in any doubt then head over to the malware section of the forum.