he, he, just be sure the Live CD is configured to leave no persistent data on a hard drive.

Some of the new ones want to advertise themselves as being "safe" yet comfortable for new users. To this end some will store persistent data locally to assist with that. (eh, wha? why?)
Any persistent data can of course be used against you -- persistently. Argh!!!

So at least remove all storage devices, hard drives, USB, etc... epoxy the connectors and then burry that box six feet deep encased in an acrylic block. Of course, without any method of storing data, the computer becomes a bit less useful.

I don't even want go into the potential holes caused by using services like Facebook (linking with its "like" or "recommend" buttons and the potential for "click-jacking" where all you need is a browser open to potentially give a person access to your email, vpn, bank records, etc... )


Be safe. Unplug. Lock your doors. Stay in bed.

True! Good point.
Some people find wearing a helmet or wearing seatbelts to be difficult for their way of life.
Many/most of those people live every day with no problem. but...

Good prevention helps to bring very low risk.
Although once infected (assuming the warnings were for true worms, viruses, and malware), those risks increase many, many fold... and very, very quickly.

(edit)Just a note, I'm not talking about re-emergence of an infection. I'm talking about the continued infection by malicious software that had not been detected and therefore not removed in the first place.

Anyway, all I can do it present a real world state of what is out there.
Weigh the risks, and make an informed decision.

aliengrove,
Regardless of your first two statements being 100% false, out of respect and in an attempt to give you some credit I did go back and re-read anyway. Sounds like your days in computing go back as far as mine with similar backgrounds. (I made no prior assumptions to your abilities, In fact I believe there were no unqualified assumptions any any statements.)

Although I do, to some extent, agree that scanning backups and reinstalling them is risky, there are documents you simply cannot live without and have to make a risk analysis on what has a low risk tolerance to be considered "safe". Images & documents are good examples, as long as you have your latest system patches installed.

** Executables should ALWAYS be reinstalled cleanly from a trusted source. (CD, original develoeper website), NEVER from backup.


Sadly, you're observations on how malware works is simply false, and I stand by my statement.
Your comment was uninformed and a foolhardy thing to say.


I hold anyone who suggests that a re-install is not necessary to prove there is no malware left on the machine. (A simple task on a 128K DOS machine. Not so simple on an OS that spans hundreds of megabytes, with gigabytes of RAM paged out to disk.)


There is a company (ESET NOD32) that is currently stating that they never missed a piece of malware in the wild for the past ten years. LIES LIES LIES!
Our "malware" (remember, it was used for 'good', so malware is not necessarily an accurate name ) was tested nightly against the top virus/anti-malware scanners (paid and free), including NOD32 to ensure it was not detectable. It passes to this day. They were not, and are not the only ones with such methods for testing the integrity of their products.


1. Never believe marketing pitches.
2. Never believe anyone who says your machine is 100% guaranteed to be clean or safe.
3. To make your computer 100% safe; format your hard drive, disconnect the computer from the wall, smash it into a million pieces, and burry it in the back yard six feet deep in an acrylic block.

Please re-read. You'll see you're mistaken on both accusations.

I just find these two statements funny, if only in their contradiction.

For the sake of those involved I hope this evaluation is based on your years of experience in the development, deployment and mitigation of such materials.
If not, the suggestion is foolhardy at best.


Having malware on your system is no joking matter.
At best, the above suggestion may be suitable.
As worst, you're looking at continued silent control of your machine with the potential for ID theft and of cyber crimes being committed through your *traceable* IP address. (all IP addresses are traceable... depends on how pliable your ISP is with handing that information over to the police when requested).


A lady here was recently charged for the heinous crime of downloading illegal music -- ended up she left her wi-fi unencrypted, and someone slurped data through the wi-fi. She did not even have any data on her machine. (Yes that is crazy, but big business doesn't care how it happened, only that they find someone to blame. I hope she gets off, but the legal battle is just starting.)

Now try explaining a situation where your PC's IP address was traced to a crime and data *is* found on your machine... with no sign of malware or other open access found to blame it on. It would be a difficult situation to be in. This is the real potential sate of things today and is not to be taken lightly.


Just food for thought. Make use of it as you wish.

If by "scrub your computer", you mean to reinstall the OS from scratch (of which part of the process is to format the drive), yes that sounds good.

I know it is very tempting to run all sorts of scanners until they report no more problems and just go on living your life... but please do not fall into that trap.

The parts of powerful malware that do the real dirty work often cannot be detected by virus scanners.
Virus scanners, in general, can only be written to find what has already been found by people.
There is no magic potion that allows software to reliably catch malware by behavior.
A lot of the stuff out there has not been caught, so the scanners cannot know about it and will not report it.

I used to work for a company that specialized in creating software that, if not for its use by government agencies (i.e. the "good guys"), would otherwise be considered malware. One of the main goals was to make sure it was not detected by any of the current malware scanners. You have to assume that the "bad guys" are doing the same.

If you have not cleanly reinstalled the OS, I would highly recommend you do so.

Just note that this only detects ports that are open at that time.
No self-respecting piece of malware will keep its ports open 24 hours a day for casual inspection and detection.

Options are:
- open the port only on a as-needed basis
- use port 80 (HTTP used by accessing web pages) to hide itself with web page traffic
- use a method known as "port-knocking" -- only after a series of unopened ports are accessed in a specific order/time will the malware respond. To everyone else, the ports appear closed.

I don't mean to belittle GRCs site, it is a wealth of information and does a great job in many areas, but like anything else it is simply one of many tools that may be used to help determine how secure your machine or network might be.


It is sad... no one should have to know all this stuff just to do every day work and recreation on a home computer. No matter your job, you almost have to be a one-man IT department at home.

If you truly believe you have been hit with a virus, the only secure way to clean it up is to reformat and reinstall the OS. No need for new hard drive.

** Do not trust anyone who simply states that they can run a program to clean the virus out for you, and not suggest reformatting the machine. That person has no clue about how malware works. **

GONE are the days when viruses intentionally erased your hard drive or put up stupid notes to make you aware you got hit. The intent now is to silently slurp data, and to make your machine a host accessible and capable of running programs remotely by the controller.
A lot of malware is now of the type that will call home to get other instructions and bigger/badder libraries of malware. Virus scanners might catch the original program, but will not likely catch the new stuff.

While working for a security firm I did tests on the state of the art for malware detection software a few years ago. With a dozen of the big name scanners, the *best* one caught maybe 50% of the test pieces of malware. These tests malwares were built from common kits used by script kiddies and some were over five years old. Meaning: even the best of the bunch caught less than 50% of five year old viruses. Those numbers dropped significantly for new malware!

My suggestion would be to;
- back up your data.
- install your OS onto a newly formatted hard drive
- install the latest patches (most malware is thwarted if you simply keep your machine up to date)
- install Microsoft's Security Essentials (a free AV that is nothing to sneeze at, surprisingly)
or use Free AVG or buy AVG, NOD32, Kaspersy or others mentioned here, and scan your backup.
- finally restore files back to your PC.


FYI,
Yes, Windows and other OS's have bugs in the image decoders that can allow a malicious image to execute code when the image is viewed. Simply opening a web page or email for instance can infect your machine almost instantly. Keep your OS patched, as most of these issues have been patched in recent months.

To help further protect your machine, get ride of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Bigger attack vector than the Windows OS is now Adobe Reader because it is so easy to attack and most people trust PDF as a solid non-tamperable block of data.
Do not use Adobe Reader. Use FoxIt (not perfect but eliminates most of the bugs Adobe refuses to fix).
If you must use Adobe, find out how to turn off JavaScript and turn off Execution of embedded code (YES, Adobe actually allows Adobe Reader to execute foreign code! Ugh!)

Got the 8G X2 Pro which definitely works with the K7.
There is a compatibility chart on their website. The new X2Pro has a larger compatibility with the DSLR range than the other EyeFi cards.

Hmmm, had same problem on three different machines with and without use of powered hubs.
No other hardware or software had problems on these machines.
I have not heard of the USB being an issue before, but will have to look into it if I find the need to use RA again.

Either way, the Eye-Fi seems quite reliable between the two of my machines to which I need to have it connect. I no longer have to worry about being on-site with customers and having my camera crash.