Free antivirus

You may want to check this out, its a freeby

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/?mkt=en-gb

Only works on legitimate copies of Windows though. And on Dail up it took 12 hours to Download the Virus files etc.

 

Had a panicky call from my neighbour today - her 19 yr old daughter who started work full time just in November, had had her bank account cleared out of what was left of December wages and her current January wages. She was beside herself poor kid.
I've gone over and looked at her computer - no anti virus software or firewalls at all. Her bank is saying that she may or may not get her money back :(
I've installed AVG free antivirus software on her system - we did an update, and ran a full system scan. It found 62 threats - trojans, downloaders, keystroke loggers - you name it, she had it on there. Whoever it was that did this was able to access her online banking, and transfer funds to another account somewhere. The 'action' took place on Thursday - and the girl received a text message on her mobile saying 'your temporary password has been replaced with your mobile number'. She thought this was strange, logged onto her bank account, but everything looked in order. She changed her passwords, and thought all was okay until she went to withdraw cash this morning from the machine.
Transaction was 'done' Thursday, but funds actually left her account this morning.

Can you have two antivirus programs running at the same time to try and have one catch what the other misses? Wouldn't mind putting the Avast on there for her seeing as you guys seem to recommend it after using it - but no idea if two would work okay together?

 

Thanks Woo - a very easy to follow post that you have made I'm certainly no IT guru, and if I'm about to mess up my own system that's one thing, but wanted to check before putting anything else on my neighbours tomorrow. They can't afford to pay anything for the software - which is why I was using the AVG free service. My laptop and hubbies are both work laptops, and the kids computers are all fairly new and have whatever they came with paid up for the year - so all protected well.
It's very disheartening to see a good honest girl get done for the equivalent of two months wages by some cretin just through her naivity.
For what it's worth - her bank, Abbey/Santander appears to be one of the only big banks that doesn't provide free antivirus software to it's online banking members. I know that my bank offers a program which they approve of, and found a list of other softwares provided by various banks - but nothing for Santander.

 

Natalie..please also have a look at this topic I wrote a while back..

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/little-bit-about-pc-security-t25050.html

It deals with computer security and mentions some programs which will help in their own way.

The main trouble with any security software, is that there is not a complete and comprehensive "fix all" tool out there, and the moment you have finished updating any security software with the latest updates...its out of date already.

Anyway, have a read of the post and install the progs I have given links for to help keep things clean.

Your friend may have been hit with a rootkit epecially if the machine was unprotected. A rootkit is a collection of programmes that do many things for example setup botnets (lots of computers talking to each other) download backdoors programmes (Their own entrance to the machine)..and 1001 other things that stop them from being removed from the machine.

There is a link to a forum on the topic I mention..I seriously recommend going there and asking for help...the help you will get is long winded and you'll have lots to do over a number of days...but eventually you will be clean.

HTH

Steve...

 

Thank you so much Steve - I'll be headed next door in a little bit so will read into this first! You're right about there not being a 'fixall' and it being out of date the minute protection is installed. Thanks for reading and giving your advice! Most helpful

 

Hi Natalie, so sorry to hear about your friend's problem. It certainly is a dangerous world out there.

However, I am still puzzled about how this was done. All banks nowdays have passwords, and rather than entering the whole word, you are prompted for individual letters. This means that it is not easy for a key logger to pick up the whole password, simply because the whole word is never entered. And of the individual letters that are picked up, it may not be clear what position they are in.

I am suspicious of the message she got on her mobile. There is a possibility that she was encouraged to log into a bank look-alike site, where she unwittingly gave them her bank account number and password. I think that for thieves these days it is easier to get the person to unwittingly reveal the password by deception, rather than trying to piece it together from a key logger program. Or perhaps it was a bogus phone call, and the key logger then picked up the complete password. Did the bank say they sent the message?

I think the moral to this should be to never react to any telephone call or e-mail concerning bank details - they are all likely to be bogus. The banks say they only ever write.

 

Hi Peter - unfortunatley she is with Abbey/Santander - 'cos I did ask about the way she puts in her password - both Barclays and Nationwide ask for 'first letter/digit of password', and 'third letter/digit of password' etc. You also need for Barclays your customer id number, and a separate five number code. So for a keylogger to get that information, it might take a while and several attempts which they'd have to match up, and it wouldn't be worth it to them for the time involved in doing that. Santander though - you need to put in your entire password each time.

I showed her on my laptop - went straight to the spam folder, where I had an email purporting to be HSBC - telling me my account (which I don't have with HSBC) had been suspended, and to login 'here'. I went over those kinds of emails with her, and she says she only has email comms with three people, and they are the only emails she ever opens.

I too am very suspicious of the mobile text she received. Unfortunately she thought her account was okay when she checked it, and didn't call the bank or do anything about it. She is such a sweet sweet girl, and to see this done to her is heartbreaking. She has just recently starting working full time in child care, so not a great wage, works as many hours as she can, volunteers many hours per week with her local guiding group as a youth leader - and is a wonderful support to her mum who has just recently become single and who herself works for a low low wage and is supporting three children on her own. They are such a nice family - I hope the scumbag who has done this to them meets with something horrible - and I don't wish that on people as a rule!

She is very naive when it comes to the internet, but she says she didn't reply or do anything with the text message other than keep it on her phone after reading.
I have offered to go with her if the ban says she's not going to get her money back - and help her out in terms of dealing with the bank. She's too 'nice' and won't foot stomp whereas I certainly will if I think she's being wrongly done by.

She had actually only found out as she had gone to the bank machine to get some money to loan to her mother for groceries. We did groceries earlier and have made sure they are okay food wise for the next few days till her tax credits come in. Why does this always happen to the good guy?

 

There are so many ways that you can get caught. I have no doubt that the telephone message was part of this.

Trying to be positive, she might learn from this experience, and possibly be saved from a very much larger loss later in life. I hear such awful stories of people who have been conned, one way or another, out of tens of thousands of pounds. But its a hard way to learn. Its lucky she has such a good friend as you, as we all need help and support in this life.

 

The telephone message had to have something to do with it. Thank you for your kind comment - but really, she is the kind of girl (well, they are the kind of family) that if you knew them, you'd do whatever you could for them, as they would for others. Hopefully her computer is safe now, though she vows she won't use internet banking again!

 

Thanks Woo. I haven't got round to doing anything yet as AVG has said that they are extending my current AVG a bit longer than originally advertised.

 

I have a savings account with one bank and my current account with another. They are linked and money can only be paid from the savings account to the current account.

I have always been very careful about spam and possible virus attacks, but so much time was taken up with spam emails (checking and deleting, on six email boxes) that I seriously thought about what I had to do to prevent this. I ceased all the mail boxes and started a new one on a new host (also moved my personal website to the new server). I then decided that the cause of the aggravation was Windows, so I ditched that and began using Ubuntu/Linux. Life has been much calmer since that time. Everything just works and keeps on working. I have also now started using "Cloud Computing". It has worked so well with the free 2GB space that I am considering renting more space to back-up all my data files. The plus side of that is that the files are available to automatically update the files on any computer I have (provided it is using the Ubuntu OS).