I've now lost all faith in IE

About 15 minutes ago there I was, looking through Google at some sites. The next moment Internet Explorer crashes and I'm left with a flashing icon in my tray saying "Your computer is infected". I have all the updates and service packs, yet there's obviously still a hole somewhere that lets this scumware come in.

I've dealt with this exact piece of spyware on other machines before but never my own. I guess I always gave IE the benefit of the doubt and assumed "ah they must have installed an ActiveX control or had no patches." But now I know, its not good enough.

*end of rant*

Goodshape

They should rename IE 'Firefox Download Utility'.

About all its good for.

Capt'n Midnight

Goodshape wrote:

They should rename IE 'Firefox Download Utility'.

About all its good for.

You need it for http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

and AIB's I Business Banking - which needs Microsoft JavaVM, even though Microsoft won't let you download it anymore :rolleyes:

So far, each month this year there has been a complete control of your computer exploit for fully patched copies of IE.

kippy

What kind of "Sites" were you browsing?
I am now using Firefox full time-mostly because of the extensions and themes though.
But I would think that if you were patched, running a decent AV and firewall, and surfed with some sense that you should have no problems such as this......
IE has its uses and is still the most used browser out there so all of these exploits are not good for its image.
Also, what was generating the flashing icon?
Was it IE itself??

gline

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

So far, each month this year there has been a complete control of your computer exploit for fully patched copies of IE.

horrayyy for IE

yup it does suk alright,i only use it for sites that i have to, though from what ive read firefox isnt exactly bug/expoit free

kippy

kippy wrote:

What kind of "Sites" were you browsing?

Also, what was generating the flashing icon?
Was it IE itself??

I was doing a Google Image Search so I didn't see the address. But the image was "clean" of course!

I have AVG 7.1 and the Windows Firewall on, the flashing icon was generated by mssearchnet.exe, msvol.tlb and nvctrl.exe. It alternated between a white X in a red circle and the old pre-SP2 Automatic Updates icon. Had I have left it any longer it would have tried to download SpyFalcon.

mssearchnet.exe was detected by AVG as "Trojan Horse Downloader.Zlob.IS" but it didn't detect the rest. I usually clean this spyware out on other machines by using the "Delete a file on reboot" function in HijackThis. So luckily it was easily tackled.

kippy wrote:

But I would think that if you were patched, running a decent AV and firewall, and surfed with some sense that you should have no problems such as this......

That's what I always assumed myself. But I still got this in even though my Windows Update is completely empty, everything that can be got has been got.

gline

Karsini wrote:

That's what I always assumed myself. But I still got this in even though my Windows Update is completely empty, everything that can be got has been got.

unfortunatly that is the way it goes, there is no such thing as 100% safe. I work for a corporate av company and thats what we hear all the time (but my firewall and av are up to date and windows was patched and i still got a threat) - thats computers for yah, there is always a way to exploit something

Karoma

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

You need it for http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Has anyone tried WindizUpdate? Can it be trusted?
(It's still not as good as the microsoft site

kippy

Interesting,
One thing that pops into my head is this.
Do you use MS Office and if so is IT fully patched?
I know a few of these exploits were targeted at unpatched office installs.