Laptop help

[plod]

Tonight was on laptop and was on this forum and sky checking my e mails

Don't know if it's coincidence but whilst browsing on here I noticed a new email and it was from someone I know and was addressed to a number of other people I know
I opened the email and all there was was a link
I clicked on it and it was for Viagra so seems someone has hijacked his email
Came back on here and about 15-20 secs later the little arrow you move around the screen wouldn't move
I could scroll up and down just no mouse control

Switched laptop on and off couple of times but to no a ail

Any advice?
As I can do fleck all to it does it mean specialist job

[FarmerPug]

sounds like a bad email virus, is there no way to open the laptop up in safe mode, have you got anti virus software, avg in my opinion is terrible i know some people swar by it but it let me down too many times, mcafee even though it costs £25 has done my laptop for the past 3 years and i have not needed to look at update messages or anything it just works in the backround and gets rid of all the viruses

[gumby6371]

It does sound very much like a virus, if the machine will boot you could try navigating to your AV using the windows key, tab and arrow keys and scheduling a boot scan, good idea to turn your router off until this is done.
Alternatively run a LINUX distro from a cd or flash drive and virus scan through that, LINUX puppy is supposed to be quite user friendly but I have limited knowledge and you will need another machine to download all the bits you need.

Lastly pull the hard drive, plug it into a desktop machine (via USB caddy), scan, recover anything you want to keep, zero write, start again. This option will 100% clean a virus but it will wipe everything so make sure you have your wireless driver handy just in case windows doesn't pick it up automatically.

I personally would go for the last option as I regularly wipe and reload windows on my machines due to the fact they just run so much quicker afterwards !

Final thought, whip the keyboard off and double check the mouse pad is plugged in properly, I once spent the best part of a day formatting, reinstalling updating drivers etc only to find I'd knocked the mouse pad connector doing a memory upgrade !!!

[highlander]

Incidentally - just because an e-mail arrives "from" someone you know, doesn't mean to say that they have a virus on their PC...

It can mean that their name and e-mail address are on a spam database. They can send e-mail that appears to come from your friend without even needing to go through that person's mail server.

Sneaky buggers.

Telling your friend to ensure they are running bang-up-to-date antivirus software and run a scan on their PC for malware (using a program such as Spybot Search and Destroy) certainly can't hurt though.

There are many PCs on the internet (read: hundreds of thousands) that are infected and are controlled remotely by "bot nets". These PCs are known as "zombies" and they run background processes that are responsible for sending spam. Hackers are paid by spammers to send these messages. All this without the owners of the PCs even knowing about it! Very sneaky, and very illegal. And it's only possible because people generally don't know how to secure their PCs, and a huge number don't run any antivirus software at all (not even the free software).

[plod]

Opened it in safe mode this morning and system restored it and cursor worked afterwards but couldn't get the Microsoft security essential I'm running to work

[swiss]

It happens. I often get emails addressed from friends, only to be offered penis enlargement surgery or penis enlargement pills or Canadian medication for my penis. I'm just happy everyone seems to be so interested in the welfare of my old chap.

[Archangel]

Incidentally - just because an e-mail arrives "from" someone you know, doesn't mean to say that they have a virus on their PC...

It can mean that their name and e-mail address are on a spam database. They can send e-mail that appears to come from your friend without even needing to go through that person's mail server.

Sneaky buggers.

Telling your friend to ensure they are running bang-up-to-date antivirus software and run a scan on their PC for malware (using a program such as Spybot Search and Destroy) certainly can't hurt though.

There are many PCs on the internet (read: hundreds of thousands) that are infected and are controlled remotely by "bot nets". These PCs are known as "zombies" and they run background processes that are responsible for sending spam. Hackers are paid by spammers to send these messages. All this without the owners of the PCs even knowing about it! Very sneaky, and very illegal. And it's only possible because people generally don't know how to secure their PCs, and a huge number don't run any antivirus software at all (not even the free software).

so true , another tip is to surf with a non-adminstrator account which does not have permissions to install anything . I always do installations offline that way you can sweep the install files before using them .Best of luck

[Gary406]

think all anti virus software is s**t and doesnt remove the virus properly, only way for me is re-fomat the HDD that gets rid of it properly,

i never use anti virus software there all rubbish that make your computer slow

[FarmerPug]

the only real solution is to buy a mac the problem there is that they are too expensive and are not the same to use as a pc, that doesnt mean they are any harder or easier to use once you get the hang of one most people prefer the mac

[highlander]

the only real solution is to buy a mac

Macs get viruses too - there's just not anywhere NEAR as many of them out there as there are for Windows.

The moment Windows becomes less popular than MacOS (probably never going to happen, but you never know), you'll find most viruses are written for MacOS. There's no such thing as an invulnerable operating system - yet - it's just a matter of time before someone spots a bug to exploit.

That's how games consoles get hacked and mod chips get created that bypass the built-in security - bugs in the OS.

i never use anti virus software

Not running antivirus software at all is just irresponsible. Sorry, but I have to say it - even if you don't notice the effects of a virus on your system, other people do - your PC could already be part of a botnet, sending spam e-mails, and you might never be any the wiser.

If your PC is noticeably slower when running AV software, then your PC is in need of an upgrade.

You'll also typically find more impact on your PC's performance with the big commercial Internet Security applications (i.e. ones that do personal firewall software) - particularly Symantec Internet Security, seems to be pretty damned slow.

I stick with Avast! Free and it does me just fine.

[Gary406]

i havnt used anti virus in 6+ years of owning a pc,

its far from needing an upgrade , even the fastest of pcs will run slower with anti virus software installed.

i understand what you mean tho, we never download anything from online, we only use it to surf the net look at shops, forums that sort of stuff ...

do you have a link for the anti virus software you use i might try it out, as i said ive never used it so dont know what a difference it will make..

[steve_earwig]

That's a bit like saying I never lock my house up... It doesn't happen so much these days (virus guard doing its thing?) but I was amazed how many seemingly innocuous sites would set the alarm bells ringing.

You could try Avast! I didn't get on with it myself but others swear by it.

[mjb]

There's no such thing as an invulnerable operating system - yet - it's just a matter of time before someone spots a bug to exploit.

I can't recall CP/M, Acorn MOS, RISC OS or VMS being exploitable...

If your PC is noticeably slower when running AV software, then your PC is in need of an upgrade.

I had to uninstall Macaffee from my other half's brand new netbook... doing ANYTHING caused both CPU cores to max out for an extended period. Uninstalling it reduced boot time from 5 minutes to 25 seconds. That's fresh from the box too - uninstalling the rest of the crapware was torturous with that rubbish running.

Prevention is better than cure. A few well-placed Firefox plugins (flashblock, no-script, etc), reduced user privileges, a properly configured firewall+IDS on the network, alternative applications (Firefox, Pidgin, VLC, OpenOrifice, etc) and user education are better than any AV product out there. Even heuristic-based AV engines are trivially easy to defeat.

OK so I do have AV running on a machine upstairs which scans the Windows machines overnight, but so far it's never picked anything up, although I've ended up cleaning so many machines for other people in the past which have malware infections despite up-to-date AV...

[teamster1975]

although I've ended up cleaning so many machines for other people in the past which have malware infections despite up-to-date AV...

Ain't that the truth Matt

[Gary406]

pcs will still get virus even with virus software installed

avg or avast or norton or mcaffee will not stop virus;s getting on pc nor will they remove them if they do get onto a pc

so i have to ask , why use them ?