I am exhausted

downquark1 · 20-09-2003, 16:48

I've just spent the last 4 hours fixing a senior citizen's computer, it was infested by spyware and Msblast variants.

I have a few questions:

Does the winxp firewall prevent msblast infection (I activated it)?

The computer would periodically crash with a blue screen error message that said dumping physical memory to disk - this sympton disappeared after I disabled the startup programs - was it a virus or just a genuine software conflict?

I'm going to get him norton AV too incase I missed something. I had to go off network activity and cpu usage to find the variants of msblast (they have names like dllhost and stuff.

I didn't take much things with me because it sounded just to be a connection problem (email and internet would periodically stop working).

bonzoe · 20-09-2003, 17:17

Did you install MS Critical updates? They should deal with msblast.

downquark1 · 20-09-2003, 17:19

Quote:

Originally posted by bonzoe
Did you install MS Critical updates? They should deal with msblast.

I installed the revelent one yes.

Xaccers · 20-09-2003, 18:07

Yes, acording to MS the XP firewall blocks access to the vulnerable port.

Steve H · 20-09-2003, 18:08

Windows XP Firewall does (Or at least in my case) Block msblast from getting in. The above error does sound like a software conflict.

Anyhow, If I were you, Install Zonealarm, Put Norton AV on, then download ALL the windows patches (There was another critical one, besides the msblast patch)

downquark1 · 20-09-2003, 18:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve_NTL
Windows XP Firewall does (Or at least in my case) Block msblast from getting in. The above error does sound like a software conflict.

Anyhow, If I were you, Install Zonealarm, Put Norton AV on, then download ALL the windows patches (There was another critical one, besides the msblast patch)

Thanks, I as I discovered more variants I lost track of whether they were there originally or had come through recently.