I can't tell you how many times I've been asked that question so here are some of my responses.
1 - Buy a new one - your computer is too old to justify putting $$ into it to rid it of viruses. Trust me, if a computer is not worth fixing, I'll tell you. I don't want to work on an old machine (probably with Win98/ME) that's slow and will take me twice as long to finish.
2 - The (once) new computer you have is what got you here now. Without understanding what led to your computer being infected (adware/bloatware/trialware, etc.), you're destined to be back in 3-6 months anyway. So, pay me now or pay me later.
3 - Viruses don't care what you paid for your computer. It's running Windows and that's all a hacker cares about. The knowledge and expertise needed to repair your computer is knowledge of Windows. Windows is just as complex on a cheap computer as on an expensive one and the effort required to repair an infection has nothing to do with the cost of the computer.
4 - When I'm done with your computer, it will be in better shape than when you got it. In fact, if you'd had me work on it when you got it, you might not be here now. See the blog about bloatware......
Monday, June 18, 2007
Resources
These are some of the web sites we use in our research....
http://research.sunbelt-software.com/ - Browse through the threat listing (sorted by category) to get some idea of the size of the effort trying to gain control of your computer. Also, from their home page, purchase/download their program CounterSpy - today it's one of the best "malware" cleanup tools available.
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/- Sunbelt's researchers also blog their latest findings as well as other tips and info. Good read.
http://darkreading.com - Heavy reading for those interested in the IT security angle - enterprise/corporate stuff but also some good blogs from security researchers.
http://benedelman.org - Ben's site is a must read for anyone interested in the dark underbelly of internet advertising and how it drives the adware/spyware business.
http://research.sunbelt-software.com/ - Browse through the threat listing (sorted by category) to get some idea of the size of the effort trying to gain control of your computer. Also, from their home page, purchase/download their program CounterSpy - today it's one of the best "malware" cleanup tools available.
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/- Sunbelt's researchers also blog their latest findings as well as other tips and info. Good read.
http://darkreading.com - Heavy reading for those interested in the IT security angle - enterprise/corporate stuff but also some good blogs from security researchers.
http://benedelman.org - Ben's site is a must read for anyone interested in the dark underbelly of internet advertising and how it drives the adware/spyware business.
Welcome the the BGC blog
If you've made it to here, it's probably because you're one of our customers and want to catch up on some of the latest news around the tech bench.
We've started this blog as a place to record some of our observations, discoveries and announcements regarding malware and hacker's efforts to use your computer.
We're not going to edit too carefully because we spend a lot of time working on computers and blogging is a very secondary job for us. We just want to record our information and let the user sort out the grammar/spelling/etc.
So, as of this writing Jon-Eric and myself (Tom Cross) are the two techs working the bench. Jon has been getting more and more involved in the diagnosis and discovery of various viruses lately. Notably, virtumondo - it's a nasty one!
Jon will be posting about his findings in the computer itself and I'll be posting about the trends, resources and anything else that our customers should be aware of.
So, thanks for visiting.
Tom
We've started this blog as a place to record some of our observations, discoveries and announcements regarding malware and hacker's efforts to use your computer.
We're not going to edit too carefully because we spend a lot of time working on computers and blogging is a very secondary job for us. We just want to record our information and let the user sort out the grammar/spelling/etc.
So, as of this writing Jon-Eric and myself (Tom Cross) are the two techs working the bench. Jon has been getting more and more involved in the diagnosis and discovery of various viruses lately. Notably, virtumondo - it's a nasty one!
Jon will be posting about his findings in the computer itself and I'll be posting about the trends, resources and anything else that our customers should be aware of.
So, thanks for visiting.
Tom
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