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Worst Security Clean-Up You've Performed?
nakhla writes "Last night, I was tasked (by my wife) to help fix her friend's computer. It is a Windows XP home system which has been running slowly, almost to the point of un-usability (like *that's* never happened before). It turns out that hundreds of random processes had filled up its meager 256 MB of RAM. The cause? Nearly 7,500 viruses and worms that had infected the system. That number doesn't even include the hundreds of spyware and adware programs that had installed themselves, as well. Although the box is now behind a firewall, that wasn't always the case. This was, by far, the most infected system I'd ever seen, but I'm sure it can't be the worst ever. What was the worst security cleanup you ever had to perform?"
Once, I saw a computer infected with Windows ME.
Demented But Determined.
I used to keep the case off of my computer, to help keep it cool. That is, until a friend crashed in my study after a big night out and somehow managed to throw up inside it. Needless to say I have a whole new setup now.
Buh!
I once tried to uninstall Real Player, but I was not successful so I guess it does not count.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
This is from 2005! Her computer was a PII 75 running Windows 95. The basic problem is that it had been overrun by viruses. A one hour fix if I had taken out her hard drive, plunked it into my repair PC and done a virus scan... but she refused to allow her machine out of her house for fear that I would steal it. Rather than entrust her $50 PC to me, she instead payed me $280 in house-call fees while I sat there for 8 hours with my arms crossed, watching AVG do it's stuff.
Congress. Got that bitch all cleaned up. Sure took a while, though. You wouldn't _believe_ the shit that was going on in there!
About twenty years ago an exterminator was spraying my apartment complex and asked if I had seen any bugs. I replied, "Only in the computer." Sadly, he actually sprayed inside the computer and killed it. I've since learned to curb the computer humor with non-technical people.