Virus! Warning

[Henry Wilt]

Morning Guys,

Sorry, but I have to post a warning to everybody
.
As I was finishing work last night (browsing on here) a new tab opened up on my browser which went straight to a Chinese (?) site. I ran a manual virus scan using Kaspersky (Server Enterprise Edition), which found a Trojan (kind of virus) which had got through my entire hard disk. It had replaced a lot of folders with .exe files that looked at first glance exactly like a folder (replaced isn't actually correct, it had hidden the original folder and planted an .exe file in it's place) . I dread to think what it would do if I had actually tried to open the folder as it would obviously have run the .exe. Further investigation showed it was embedded into our server and on the 3 other work stations I looked at. It is a nasty piece of work which took a lot of getting rid of (I've still got to manually check all the other workstations on our network on Monday), Kaspersky alone could not deal with it. I don't know how it got onto our network in the first place but going through our event logs, it appears that the updates had not completed successfully on a couple of occasions recently. Whether this was due to the virus or it allowed the virus to get in I don't know.
My worry is that I had been posting on here without any knowledge that the virus existed on my PC. I am fairly sure that the virus software DPS uses will have caught anything that might have tried to upload when I posted, but to be sure, please make sure your Anti virus software is up to date and I would strongly suggest that run a manual scan. If any of your folders appear to have disappeared, make sure you can view hidden folders using the folder options under tools in explorer. If they've suddenly become "hidden", chances are you got this virus. If you don't know what you are doing or your AV software can't deal with it, please seek help. I will gladly try and help anybody if they need it but, please bear in mind, I am not a full time professional IT person.

[wulf]

You should be safe with reading the forums (not least because we have prevented users contributing any "j a v a script" in their posts.

Following links is more problematic because that takes you back into the big bad internet, although reputable sites like Flickr are fine and we jump hard on anything that looks suspicious. If you spot something we miss that leads to a bad place please don't hesitate to use the pinkish "report" button at the top right of the post it appears in.

Thanks,

Wulf