The Importance of Updates - An Experience

In my family we have people whom have little knowledge of why computer updates are an essential part of running windows machines whether laptop, Desktop, Vista , XP, or whatever the form of computer or OS.

I was recently given a laptop to sort out that belonged to my Daughter, previously it was her works laptop and I was alarmed to see that no updates of any kind had been implemented. To make it worse the system had no Antivirus program, no Firewall yet it had been used on the internet daily.

On further investigation I found the browser had been hijacked and popups were appearing everywhere, I feared that there would be only one course of action and that would be to delete the HDD and re-install the latest version of XP Pro.

As it was I prevailed and managed to download a copy of Spybot and Avast together with a copy of Adware SE. Once loaded the first thing I ran was Avast using it in thorough scan mode……it just went berserk and immediately asked me to re-boot and run the scan through the boot sectors. An hour later and after removing umpteen viruses I managed to get back into windows and started the scan again….250 viruses of various types were found and deleted, re-booted again and ran a second scan which turned up nothing.

I then ran Spybot….this went nuts and pulled so many problems that I thought all was lost but no it did the job and cleaned the system of the spyware it contained.

Then ran Adware SE, this turned up more stuff and it was then deleted.

Bearing in mind this laptop hadn’t been updated since the IT department had bought it, it still was a bare XP with no SP’s and no firewall. I started the updates and this took about 3 hours to complete to get it to SP3. From then on the system was running at a good speed and most of the programs were loading ok.

Then I took a look in the program folder and found stuff in there I didn’t recognise, so of to the Control panel and unloaded them, then to Regedit and located anything to do with them and deleted. The system was re-booted and low and behold it was working like a new machine. I did a final sweep with the spyware and Avast with a negative result. The browser didn’t load any popups and ran along nicely.

So if anyone doubts that updates should be ignored, do so at your own peril, this was the most infested system I have ever come across and took a lot of time to sort out. Trouble is that educating family members to do their own maintenance is a lost cause as I fear it appears to be with some companies.

Nev

 

And our company as well. We have an anti-virus program on our company's computer that is so old it is ridiculous. The definitions are two years old and I've no ability to update it since the sysop won't give me the password and we have a proxy issue. It's hopeless. I installed Spybot and activated the Windows firewall. That is our sole protection. Now... I hasten to add that if one is careful where he surfs (and we only surf to company approved sites) then it should be reasonably safe but still... I find this guy's attitude strange to say the least.

 

James its not even reasonably safe to surf even company approved sites as any site can be targeted by hackers/crackers & you don't even know what you are getting into. I hope you have a edge of the firewall with antiviral solution.

Me too. The sysop is behaving like an ostrich.

 

At the company I work at no expense was spared on a high degree of security, apart from the firewall on each of the machines we have Watchguard installed to stop people getting on dubious sites and the Anti-Virus is updated via script to every machine within the domains at least three times per day or more.

This was set up by our previous IT manager who actually turned the company around with his systems skills so we have the top of the range networks at the moment. A very clever person that the company didn't value enough.

Nev

 

Isn't that an everlasting/never ending story ? IT seems to top management as a sink hole where you put in a lot of money but ROI does not seem apparent or inappropriate solutions are bought to reduce cost.

I have been a victim too.

 

Like you NevGeorge, apart from the wife, no one takes an interest until the computer runs slow or just dies, then they (junior daughter in particular) yells screams & kicks about it, cripes I have set up there start menu with all they need to keep their comps up to date, including Clean up & defrag (they never run these), their comps run auto update but it amazes me when I get "my computers broken" and find that it's not only windows but all the other update notifications, camera, adobe, the list goes on that are ignored, connection failed for up-date (AVG).
Oh well no point complaining, or I will have to get rid of my toys!
Have a good day
Jac

 

Here's one of the worst ones I've handled. This was 2003 and I finally wiped it, reformatted and fresh installed. Within 1 week the kid had trashed his machine again and I told his Dad to take it somewhere else.

95259 files scanned
5385 infected files
5095 fixed or deleted
4589 deleted
290 quarantined
506 repaired