Thread: What's the paranoia?

Everywhere I see people researching best anti-virus software, losing their sleeps over virus attacks. I feel being so paranoid about virii (or viruses, don't want to start a literature thread here!), is unnecessary. What important data do general people have in our computers the knowledge of which would benefit a hacker? Until and unless you store Credit Card details strewn all over your HDD (LAME!!), nobody would benefit from your personal mail passwords of Yahoo! and Gmail. No one's interested, believe me! After all what can a virus do? At the extreme, it can only force you to reinstall your OS, resulting in a cleaner and faster environment. You can get rid of the useless crap you were Thinking of uninstalling but were not! Stop worrying, start living! Install an Internet security suite, forget it! If it detects virii, nothing to worry, it will do the rest. If it does not, you'll not be able to do anything, anyways. So, stop worrying about the safety of your computer, start using the internet.

Common misinterpretations smashed:

• I am not saying don't use an antivirus
• I am not saying go visit crack and warez site to invite virus attack
• I am not saying to pop in any drive or disk you can lay your hands on without knowing the source

What say people?

I think your computer resources is up for grab & going to be used by some cracker.

Install a firewall at least & see which services you are running which are vulnerable.

Originally Posted by Luke Skywalker

I think your computer resources is up for grab & going to be used by some cracker.

Install a firewall at least & see which services you are running which are vulnerable.

You mean they'll get my gmail password and leak it over to foreign nations, who'll auction it to maybe Osama, and maybe he'll use my email id to wreak havoc over the world. Come on, Like I care!!
On a serious note, as I said I have an Internet Security Suite installed, but I don't worry about loss of data or virus attacks. Moreover, almost all virus attacks are caused by negligence. Stay alert, and you won't need to worry!

PS:Or maybe by computer resources you mean some thing like a DDoS, I hope my Internet Security will take care of that!

No your CPU & memory. Also what u have written had been done. & of DDOS there exist no defence ask any hacker or cracker. Although I have heard of many thuggish software claiming to do that.

If there is no defence, then again you prove me right! Don't you?

Also what u have written had been done.

What does this mean? didn't get you!

Originally Posted by sharadkumar

If there is no defence, then again you prove me right! Don't you?

What does this mean? didn't get you!

I was talking about DDOS not the other thing which you have written. DDOS had been done on root servers so it had no defense . But your computer resources can be used by a cracker. & you can prevent that by monitoring your services you are running.

Of course, and I am promoting only that. Monitor your computer, be alert. Don't rely on any antivirus software, but don't lose your sleep over it! This is what I have to say.

There can be a lot of personal and sensitive information stored on
your computers that you don't want anyone to find out.

-F

I just lost my marked email in the incredmail. Not sure about virus, but my OS got corrupted. Reinstalled XP, lost all the customizations in FF and other tools.

Always use portable applications, especially freewares. Keep them on a seperate partition, never lose anything again! Be it mails, passwords anything else. I learnt it the hard way.
Another benefit is that it keeps the Windows Registry uncluttered, also you can use the same application in all OSes, like I use same copy of Seamonkey, Pidgin,Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Filezilla, Open Office,and many more in Win XP and Win 7.

I just lost my marked email in the incredmail

Incredimail is not recommended.
Use some other like /Outlook/Thunderbird etc.
You can store all your email folders Outside the OS windows
or documents and settings folder. ( usually with extn *.dbx)

Incredible mail, i found pretty complicated , to retrieve
old folders, deleted mail. Extension is also different.

I agree with @sharadkumar's views.
But users have no patience to run Anti virus application, which sometimes take more than two hours to do full scan . same applies to Spybot etc.
I use quickfire Yahoo Antispy, and
clear most malware/trojans within a minute. after initial scan.
My Avira stops even legitimate sites with cross links.!
To top this , Now Google/FireFox issues dire warnings !
In spite of that, I surf those websites without any problem !
!

Nobody reports what virus, their system detected, and whether it was cleaned/quarantined etc.
Even today there is report that conflicker virus is still rampant.