Got hit by a virus/malware today at home.

[hoser]

I woke up this afternoon to Patti saying we got a virus/ malware on the laptop she uses. It is called SWP 2009 Demo, and it took me the better part of two ours to get rid of the varmit. It wants to install a spyware program, and it also comes with plenty of porn sites. Constant popups so it makes it very difficult to go to Microsoft for their malware updates to kill this. In case you want to read about it just Google swp 2009 demo and do some reading. Seems quite a few other people had the same problem today as well. My Panda anti-virus didn't even catch it. Good luck to you all.

[OkieDigger]

Oh noes! Bill has the coodies!

[coinnut]

I feel dirty just reading that post lol Just kidding. Thanks for the heads up. If I caught that virus, I'd have to get a new computer. That's how computer illiterate I am So I hope I don't catch it

[Epi-hunter]

I have so much anti malware, anti spyware, and anti virus software on my computer that nothing could survive an attack on me

That's a new emoticon apparently. I'm sure I'll be using that one frequently lol

[Krom]

Watch out for this one, Bill (jus' got this yesterday):

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses � the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer � and might not realize it until police knock at your door.

An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a PC through a virus. It can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.

Their situations are complicated by the fact that actual pedophiles often blame viruses � a defense rightfully viewed with skepticism by law enforcement.

It's an example of the old 'dog ate my homework' excuse, says Phil Malone, director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework.

The AP's investigation included interviewing people who had been found with child porn on their computers. The AP reviewed court records and spoke to prosecutors, police and computer examiners.

'It ruined my life'
One case involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the Massachusetts agency that oversees workers' compensation.

In 2007, Fiola's bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his colleagues. A technician found child porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.

Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, which carries up to five years in prison. He endured death threats, his car tires were slashed and he was shunned by friends.

Fiola and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal fees. They liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage and sold their car.

An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute � an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.

Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped � 11 months after it was filed.

The Fiolas say they have health problems from the stress of the case. They say they've talked to dozens of lawyers but can't get one to sue the state, because of a cap on the amount they can recover.

It ruined my life, my wife's life and my family's life, he says.

The Massachusetts attorney general's office, which charged Fiola, declined interview requests.

Tapping viruses
At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with viruses that could give hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp. Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.

Pedophiles can tap viruses in several ways. The simplest is to force someone else's computer to surf child porn sites, collecting images along the way. Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can be viewed remotely when the PC is online.

They're kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield, says Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child pornographers were abusing their legitimate services.

But pedophiles need not be involved: Child porn can land on a computer in a sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC's owner.

In the first publicly known cases of individuals being victimized, two men in the United Kingdom were cleared in 2003 after viruses were shown to have been responsible for the child porn on their PCs.

In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a defense contractor's PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.

In the other, a virus changed the home page on a man's Web browser to display child porn, a discovery made by his 7-year-old daughter. The man spent more than a week in jail and three months in a halfway house, and lost custody of his daughter.

Chris Watts, a computer examiner in Britain, says he helped clear a hotel manager whose co-workers found child porn on the PC they shared with him.

Watts found that while surfing the Internet for ways to play computer games without paying for them, the manager had visited a site for pirated software. It redirected visitors to child porn sites if they were inactive for a certain period.

[hoser]

Yeah Joe I read that article and when Patti said we had a ton of porn on the computer I really got a cold chill up my spine thinking this might be just that. If I couldn't get rid of it I was even thinking of taking the comp right to the cop shop and let them see I didn't download this crap. What else could you do to protect yourself once this gets in.