Possible new virus threat...

[methedras.livejournal.com]

Heads up guys, possible new pain in the ass coming our way...


This morning I appear to have received some sort of virus on my Windows XP machine, that is causing strange behaviour.

Using ADSL I am able to connect, can ping IP and domain, but can not browse or receive email. When trying to receive email, I was getting a "buffer error" in Eudora, and when trying to browse to www.google.com.au, the status bar would start flicking through :-

www.www.google.com.au.org
www.www.google.com.au.net
www.www.google.com.au.com

Then eventually gave a "Page can not be displayed error". I then also started to receive problems with IE giving "Can not open search page" and violation and exception errors.

When this occurred, I started to check running processes and eventually narrowed the process down to - avserve.exe causing me the problem.

After I performed an End Task on this process, the problem was resolved, though after a reboot will re-appear in the process list.

It will only appear in the Processes list when you are online.


Speaking to one of my reps on my team this afternoon, he has had a customer who has been affected by this problem too. After he disabled the process, the connection was working fine.

This customer was using dialup.

This may also be relevant, three days ago Norton Anti-Virus ceased to work on my system, doing the usual blocking of port 25 and 110. I uninstalled the software and the system was working fine.

Though now after downloading a 15 day trial of the latest NAV software, it is unable to install correctly on my system. I don't know whether this is relevant.


Anyone got any ideas?
Looks like I'll be formatting my baby this weekend.

Let me introduce you to...

[methedras.livejournal.com]

Symantec have identified and listed the virus...

W32.Sasser Worm

Exploits the MS04-011 vulnerability, mentioned in the link I've given.


Great, let's hope this aint a rocky one like the fucking Blaster.

Oh boy some customers...

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

I can cope with the not-so-technical ones. With those who inform me they are not very technically minded and so are willing to listen to my instructions. I had a guy the other day who was obviously mentally disabled but who happily followed me step by step, asked when he wasn't sure, and we had his computer up and running as fast as any others I've dealt with.

And then I had the guy who had had his internet connection up for 4 hours, had 3 computers connected via a network to the cable modem (which he must have set up between when the tech left and when he called us) and couldn't understand how the machines had downloaded 100MB in 3 hours. Because, as he explained it, he hadn't asked for any files to be saved on his machines, so he hadn't downloaded anything.

This guy, this person who had set up a network at home and who therefore had some technical knowledge, didn't understand that when you have a computer connected to the 'net EVERYTHING that comes through the modem counts as a download. Every web image, every Windows Automatic Update, every received email, every Nortons Live Update - all of them COUNT TOWARDS YOUR SMEGGING DOWNLOAD LIMIT YOU IGNORANT SON OF A MARTIAN EARTHWORM!!!!!!!

And 100MB in three hours between 3 different computers, all of which were probably downloading the full Windows Updates for the last 2 years, is really not that much. I think the office record is 6GB in a day, but then that guy was really trying.