Technical Difficulties

I don't know if you know this but computer viruses aren't very fun, especially not when you have a lot of work to do. There was a small possibility I was going to be able to write a new blog post this weekend but alas, it was not to be so, as I spent an unhealthy portion of the last three days dealing with the virtual parasites plaguing my laptop's hard-drive. Just when I'd think I had rid my computer of the pesky trojans lurking within it and reversed al the damage they'd done, another few of these annoyances would emerge from wherever they spawned and only serve to antagonise me further, blast those rapscallions!

 Probably not a good sign.

I had my browser re-directing Google links to spam sites, my automatic updates irreversibly disabled, my security software prevented from booting, files on my computer requesting access to restricted files in my ‘system32’, my firewall taken down, my ‘svchost.exe’ crashing, my browser crashing, and by the end my access to the internet had been blocked entirely. My computer seems to now, finally, be fixed through a combination of Malware Bytes’ Anti-Malware, a Kapersky Tool, AVG Free, regedit.exe, and some reluctant use of System Restore, so thanks to the makers of those fine products.

It turned out that the way the trojans had been getting into my machine was via an initial virus that had gotten into my Java client and allowed virus code to be loaded in externally. I have zero idea where I contracted this from in the first place, but my theory is that it was able to slip under my computer’s radar when my AVG needed me to restart my system to finish installing its updates and I kept blowing it off. Who knew those software updates could contain vital data for updating my virus definitions and security?

I suppose if there’s a moral here it’s stay protected on the internet and when your security system tells you it needs to reboot, it might be a good idea to consider listening to it. Hopefully I’ll be back to business as usual next week. Thanks for reading, good luck, and have Batman.

-Gamer_152