Anti-virus Question

pauLAW · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:35

Hi all!

A strange thing happened last night! I checked my hotmail email last night from work before leaving the office and my account sent out an email to all of my contacts linking them to a website.......now the link it sent out must have been a virus so I quickly contacted everyone and told them not to open any emails from me!

I was concerned that the virus may have come from my external HDD so I scanned this when I got home on my home PC and no threats were found. This morning I ran a scan on my work PC and it found and deleted 5 threats......im hoping this has cured the problem but im not logging onto my hotmail from the work PC just in case!

My question is...... I use Avast anti-virus at home, is this enough?
I know there are things such as spy-bot but im not sure on the difference? Is it advisable to have a spy-bot on my PC as well as an anti-virus?

Im not really botherd about my work PC (the virus may have been there before I was given the PC) I just dont want to find my home PC infected!

Thanks

3dcandy · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:42

Hotmail is forever being hacked mate, so you may not even be infected. As a matter of course I install Spybot as it does seem to catch some stuff the others don't. I also use the immunize facility that blocks known dodgy sites (also cuts out a few pops, popunders or whatever!)

andicole0 · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:44

Seems to happen a lot to Hotmail accounts, change your password.

Andi.

edscdk · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:45

from experience of loads of different setups spybot will likley criple your PC unless its high spec, I don't know waht it does but the teatimer service can use 100's of MB of ram and max the CPU out....

I usually stick AVG free and the free malwarebytes (which has no active component I just tell people to run it once a week)

make sure you do not run as an admin that makes it much harder to get infected..

pauLAW · 18 Jan 2011 at 12:04

I have just changed my password, I did fear that might be the case as I am running things like outlook on my work PC and I have had no problems there.

I will stick with my antivirus this teatimer sounds a bit odd lol.

Thanks all

Adeelq1 · 18 Jan 2011 at 12:13

Hey, as mentioned above, Free malware bytes, is a very useful tool to run alongside your anti-virus http://www.malwarebytes.org/ check it out and see.. Just lay off using your hotmail at your pc for a few days, then continue as normal.

Hope this helped.

Skidilliplop · 18 Jan 2011 at 12:27

There's been a bit of a global rise in this the last few months. It's just hotmail being hotmail. Such a prolific mail provider attracts a lot of unwanted attention. And being free there's only so much investment in security that can be justified, such is life.

Personally I have a 123 reg domain with mail forwarding. This allows me to have one address that i can forward to any other. So i can change my mail provider without worrying about the address changing. I'd recommend this as then you can move all your important stuff away from hotmail, and it pays to keep it moving or use your ISP mail accounts. Generally they're a bit better protected (primarily because you're paying for them)

shotgunshand · 18 Jan 2011 at 12:39

3dcandy said:
Hotmail is forever being hacked mate, so you may not even be infected. As a matter of course I install Spybot as it does seem to catch some stuff the others don't. I also use the immunize facility that blocks known dodgy sites (also cuts out a few pops, popunders or whatever!)

Agreed. Likely account hack.

Try to ensure your password is reasonable complex to reduce the likelihood of it being cracked directly. Not much use of the authenticating databse is compromised but still a good practice.

Make sure your browser is up to date with updates.

pauLAW · 18 Jan 2011 at 12:44

Yeah I have put a strong password in place, hotmail....I hate you

Off topic. Skidilliplop....your signature is amazing

3dcandy · 18 Jan 2011 at 14:10

edscdk said:
from experience of loads of different setups spybot will likley criple your PC unless its high spec, I don't know waht it does but the teatimer service can use 100's of MB of ram and max the CPU out....

I usually stick AVG free and the free malwarebytes (which has no active component I just tell people to run it once a week)

make sure you do not run as an admin that makes it much harder to get infected..

Sorry, yes don't install the teatimer...other than that it's pretty good.
Malwarebytes seems ok, just don't seem to get the same mileage from it re: detections. Good or bad, I'm not sure!