How recently have you had Something Bad happen to you on your computer or communications device in the sense of malware, invasion of privacy, or other invasive breaches of security?
In general, what type or types of Something Bad in that sense have happened to you on your computer or comm device since you first started using them?
What type of device and OS (if applicable/known) was involved?
EDIT: too complicated to do as a poll. I’ll answer my own questions in next post.
How recently have you had Something Bad happen to you on your computer or communications device in the sense of malware, invasion of privacy, or other invasive breaches of security? this month • this year • this decade • ever • never
In general, what type or types of Something Bad in that sense have happened to you on your computer or comm device since you first started using them?
viruses • trojans • security settings changed on device • personal info stolen • info erased from device • other malware
What type of device and OS (if applicable/known) was involved?
iOS phone or pad • android phone or pad • other phone / pad • Windows computer • Mac computer • Unix computer • Other device
My own answers:
How recently have you had Something Bad happen to you on your computer or communications device in the sense of malware, invasion of privacy, or other invasive breaches of security? ever as in 1986 or so, nothing since
In general, what type or types of Something Bad in that sense have happened to you on your computer or comm device since you first started using them? viruses
What type of device and OS (if applicable/known) was involved? Macs
Never had Something Bad Happen due to contagion, I’m plenty capable of making that happen all by myself. The kinds of things that have happened (malware) get cleaned off by CCleaner, various anti-virii and malware cleaners. I had AVG for about three years and it stopped three things I never heard of; I had Kaspersky for a year and it never saw a single thing.
Currently, I’m an electronic anti-vaxxer. Haven’t had anti-virus for the past few years and everything works fffffffffffff…
Never have had a problem, though I’ve fixed other people’s problems. Been on PCs since the AT&T 6300, and didn’t suffer the Morris worm since I worked at Bell Labs where he fixed the sendmail bug before his “experiment.” But I’m pretty cautious, and I know how to check links and read expanded headers.
I had a really nasty, nasty trojan infection earlier this year. AVG detected it but was basically like, sorry, dude. Your shit’s fucked up and I can’t fix it. It infected a file in some Win\Sys32 directory and it renamed some file I can’t remember (Win7 install that I can’t refer back to) and put a special character in it that I couldn’t find in ASCII (looked like Ankh) symbol. Beyond that, it put some stupid-long file name to make Windows shit the bed, but I couldn’t even rename it with a command line instruction since I didn’t know the Ankh symbol and any ASCII value I tried failed.
I dicked around with it for days but eventually gave up and reinstalled windows. If you’re not skeptical yet, I have more news. A day or two after discovering this computer virus, I realized that my Linksys WRT54GL router was broadcasting openly with a visible SSID and bare-ass naked to the world. I tried a hard reset multiple times and could not gain access to the router admin again. Threw it away. Impossible, right? I would have thought so, too.
Other than that, no significant problems in 17 years of internet connectivity.
I have a PC and Android devices. I have never been “hacked” that I know of, as in I don’t have reason to believe that anyone was shuffling around in my C: drive or my tablet’s underwear drawer. I have, on very rare occasions, had a significant bit of malware in my decades of use (PC since early 90’s, I guess the Commodore before that doesn’t count for viruses). Most recent was probably about 12-18 months ago when I had one of those Ransomware attempts. Fortunately it wasn’t the kind that encrypted your files but rather the half-assed kind that tried to pass off as the FBI locking your computer for suspected illegal downloads of terrible porn and asking for $500 to unlock it. Booting into Safety mode and doing a recovery fixed that.
Generally speaking, I like to think I’m fairly smart about my web use and avoid the worst of it. I don’t have anything super secret or precious on my PC anyway. If I ever had a big virus issue, I’d be okay with wiping it and reinstalling. It would be annoying, of course, but I wouldn’t be losing ten years of tax info, three year’s worth of novel writing or all of my son’s baby photos.
I would like to know about people who have had problems which they know resulted from being on public WIFI. Not to highjack the thread, but to get to the original inspiration.
Most people get malware, etc., by downloading software which includes some kind of “extra” installation. What I really want to know is how much hacking actually occurs on public WIFI systems.
I used to get viruses/trojans/malware every now and again up until 2008, and I haven’t had anything since. Pretty much every time it was my own fault by going to websites that were shady as hell and downloading files that were doubly shady. Once you start staying in the good part of the net, all you have to do is install flashblock and adblock and you’re pretty much set. Ad networks are the major way in which malware is thrown around these days. If you don’t load ads in the first place due to adblockers, don’t click on shady links or files in your email, and don’t go downloading files willy-nilly from any website that pops up in a google search without researching them first, you’ll be pretty much fine.
I keep an antivirus on my computer but turn it off to save resources. I turn it on specifically to update and do a scan and haven’t come up with anything for years now.
I have only used PCs and my smartphones are android. I messed with some shady stuff on android too but never got burned the way I used to with PC.
Cyber Sec student here
A common misconception is that people are wanting to get into your computer when they hack you at a coffee shop
Nobody actually cares about that
What they want is your ssn, credit card number, banking info, etc. The problem with public wifi is that anyone at all can sit outside the shop and get everything you pass through the router with almost no effort.
I highly recommend avoiding public wifi for anything that isn’t a youtube video, wikipedia, or some other non-sensitive nonsense
Even facebook is something to avoid
I got some sort of virus or trojan about ten years ago, when I was broke and in the habit of using pirated software. Couldn’t get any antivirus to clear it out. I vaguely recall that something was shutting down the antivirus software whenever it started removing infected files, so I immediately shut everything down, booted up a Linux live cd to recover any files I wanted, and reformatted and reinstalled Windows.
A little more recently, maybe five years ago, my Facebook account was compromised somehow and used to post malicious links. I was barely using it at that point. Not sure how the attackers compromised it, though I’d guess it was through my own password reuse. I have, and continue to reuse passwords on sites I consider “low-value”, which included facebook at the time. I’ve increased my security on facebook (a strong unique password used by a password manager, and two-factor authentication), since even though it is of little value to me, it is a fairly high-value target for attackers.
A few years back, the U.S. Government tried me in absentia for child porn possession, found me guilty, and locked down my computer. However, they offered me the chance to pay my fines by putting lots of money on gift cards and transmitting the numbers to their secret Russian bank account.
Had a friend who was in the business dig out the malware while operating in Safe Mode.
Don’t tell anyone. The Government still doesn’t know.
Someone in my office infected a work computer with malware from a SDMB banner ad. It was easiest to just reimage the hard drive. No one sent a bill to the SDMB.