Hi all (Esp any MS folks reading ;) ) Pretty much what it says in the subject box as = Re the recent spate of hoax anti-virus viruses. Will MS be producing a "patch" to prevent infection like they did for "Blaster" & "Sasser" etc ? btw, I do not need help in fixing it. I work for a small Computer Support business and we fix it around 5 times a week. Customers machines, even newly built ones, often get it back, sometimes within days. From what we can work out, and after talking to others on forums, it seems this is a "floating" infection, (like "blaster" was) not one that gets in via email or by visiting an infected website.1 person needs an answerI do too

There is no one "floating" infection. There are many, many variants of rogues, most of which once installed download numerous little trojan friends. Therefore there is no way that Microsoft could produce a "patch" for this. Especially since so many of these rogues rely on social engineering. People need to keep their operating systems and major programs which can be vectors for compromise updated, have a good antivirus installed, scan occasionally with an antispyware program such as MBAM , and they need to practice "Safe Hex". And then they won't get infected. http://www.microsoft.com/security/antivirus/rogue.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_security_software http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ (great resource) http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/ For end users: http://www.getsafeonline.org/ https://www.mysecurecyberspace.com/ http://www.getnetwise.org/ http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/staying-safe.pdf MS-MVP - Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!

There is no one "floating" infection. There are many, many variants of rogues, most of which once installed download numerous little trojan friends. Therefore there is no way that Microsoft could produce a "patch" for this. Especially since so many of these rogues rely on social engineering. People need to keep their operating systems and major programs which can be vectors for compromise updated, have a good antivirus installed, scan occasionally with an antispyware program such as MBAM , and they need to practice "Safe Hex". And then they won't get infected. MS-MVP - Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic! I agree with you Malkeleah re the nature of these annoying pests, constantly morphing makes it hard for a/v to keep up, but I cannot really agree (with the greatest respect of course) with [quote]"they need to practice "Safe Hex" And then they won't get infected. "[/quote]From what we have seen, even a freshly built PC, fully up to date, with good a/v and a sensible user, can get infected easily (we have seen it happen first hand). We have been communicating on techie forums re trying to find a "proactive" protection against them and so far have come up with nothing. No amount of updates or common sense seems good enough to stop them getting on a machine. My elderly mother only ever checks her hotmail (never opening anything she does not recognize) and only goes on BBC dot Co dot UK, and she has had it twice in the last few weeks. Even the main players in the a/v world do not offer "proactive" defense. Plus the odd thing to us is that, whilst MBAM and / or Spybot S&D can (either on their own or often using both) clear them off, the main a/v venders products cannot !! We have no problem clearing them (and in fact have made money for the business in doing so !) but it would be nice to think that someone (if not Microsoft) could come up with a front line protection. This one is not too bad in it's effects, but what if some blackhat uses the same techniques to write a really invasive / destructive varient :0 Thanks for the reply Malkeleah :) The search goes on ;)

The only proactive steps that can be taken are the ones I've already mentioned plus - the most important piece of the equation - an educated user. I can tell you that my Windows machines were (and still are) used extensively by teenage boys for years with no infections. And this isn't because my boys weren't doing all kinds of things with Windows. It's because they were (and are) educated users.MS-MVP - Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!