Trojans, some of them used

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So as you know, I had a colonoscopy last week. My results were lovely (and didn’t diagnose the problem I went in for b/c the scope showed there is no problem). While Hawk & I were at my appointment, Nina was here watching the kids, along with a very lovely friend of hers that we said she could have along.

The next day this computer, which we only recently got online, started having pop-ups like mad. The kind of thing I couldn’t even close b/c it wanted a response (that response being “download this!”). So I was like “WTF?” I assumed it was due to the only new thing on the computer: a memory stick. So I scanned the memory stick while using it on the upstairs computer. No problems. Also no problems on that computer or on the laptop, which is also recently online (we got wireless Internet hooked up around Christmas).

Hawk told me that he tried to play a game on this computer last night and that the pop-ups were out of control. I said I’d run an antivirus scan (AVG) and it quarantined some stuff and that I’d put in some pop-up blockers. Nothing worked.

Jam told me to try SuperAntiSpyware, a free download, when we thought it was something off the brand-new memory stick. I’d installed & run it on the other two systems but not yet on this one. When I turned on the computer this afternoon, wham! Pop-ups! Messages like “do not close this window if you do not want your computer to be unsoiled” — disguised as an antivirus update that I couldn’t close without getting another similar message that took me back to the original.

So I ignored all of those windows and downloaded & ran the SAS:

What you can’t see there is the number of Trojan viruses on this computer. It was at least 6.

So what happened?

With nothing else new or different on the computer, I thought, “I wonder where the girls were online the other day.” So I looked in the history for “five days ago” and voila. They were playing with their MySpace pages and visiting pages all over MySpace, following link after link to “free MySpace layouts!” At least that’s what the pages were titled in the history. I didn’t revisit them. I didn’t need to to know where it had come from (and it coincided perfectly with when the problems began).

So the SAS cleared out all the junk and I haven’t had a single pop-up since. I then sent a note to Beta w/ the links for AVG & SAS b/c if Nina is visiting sites like those w/o a care in the world, I shudder to think of the state their computers are in. I also told her that Nina won’t be allowed online here anymore. I feel kind of bad about that but frankly I’m not paying her to update her MySpace page. I’m paying her to entertain my children & keep them safe. She does a great job at it too & they adore her, which is probably why I do feel a guilt twinge about being a hardass. But I am also a hardass on occasion and that’s when the part of me that feels bad gets bitchslapped by the bigger part of me.

Thing is, with Holden going back to part-time daycare, Zoe going back to school and Hawk going back to work (!) tomorrow, I’ll be able to get a lot done around here, which is the whole reason that Nina would come on Fridays. With Holden at daycare until 5 and Zoe only here for a few hours before Hawk comes home on Fridays, I don’t even need Nina every week like I used to. I don’t know if maybe we’ll work out a schedule where she could come, like, a Friday a month or something just so the kids get to play with her but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll join Curves or something & she can watch Zoe then

Anyway, that’s my excitement for the day & I thought it would be a good reminder for everyone to run some scans. I really like those two programs and they’re free so check them out.

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