Malware warning

Bugsy said:
Yeah I was stupid. I actually installed a new 1TB SSD right after I purchased and switched th BIOS to the SSD and made the original hard drive the secondary. I migrated the entire OS using Acronis so, at that point, I could have easily just unplugged the hard drive as a backup. Instead I reformatted it with a clean wipe and used it as a storage drive for whatever. This time the computer repair shop reformatted the OS onto the original hard drive as well as SSD and I did just that so it is now sitting as a backup.
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I would back it up on an external disc. That disc is only connected to restore files. If your disc is always connected it can get infected too and your backup will be worthless.
Also make sure you have a startup CD. It can happen that you cannot restore without that CD.
 
virtusa said:
I would back it up on an external disc. That disc is only connected to restore files. If your disc is always connected it can get infected too and your backup will be worthless.
Also make sure you have a startup CD. It can happen that you cannot restore without that CD.
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No I mean the hard drive is physically disconnected just sitting inside my computer. Were I to get infected that bad again I'd simply disconnect the SSD and reconnect the hard drive and take the SSD to be wiped. However, an occasional backup of current system and files would not be remiss.
 
Bugsy said:
No I mean the hard drive is physically disconnected just sitting inside my computer. Were I to get infected that bad again I'd simply disconnect the SSD and reconnect the hard drive and take the SSD to be wiped. However, an occasional backup of current system and files would not be remiss.
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Nope. You're not getting it.

If your backup is connected to your computer, it is always at risk. You can have some backups for convenience in coping with a "glitch", but you need to have at least one backup source available which is NOT connected to the computer all the time for big problems. (You may be able to achieve this "non-connected" status of a backup by disabling its SATA port on the mobo.... safer yet to have it physically disconnected.)

In my case, I routinely keep a 2nd drive mounted as a clone... redo it about every 2 weeks. I also keep 2 images on external drives as secondary backups... have rarely needed to use them. And then there is the other one... it's the "just in case" one.. physically disconnected at all times except for updating something on it.

I know... I may be "backup-paranoid"... but when needed you always want to have "one more source" to restore your rig without having to do so from scratch .
 
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Scataphagos said:
Nope. You're not getting it.

If your backup is connected to your computer, it is always at risk. You can have some backups for convenience in coping with a "glitch", but you need to have at least one backup source available which is NOT connected to the computer all the time for big problems. (You may be able to achieve this "non-connected" status of a backup by disabling its SATA port on the mobo.... safer yet to have it physically disconnected.)
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That's what I said before. It is physically unplugged from all ports and connections. It's just sitting in the metal casing. So unless they've managed to make computer viruses physically airborne it would be impossible to touch it in the hard drive.
 
Bugsy said:
That's what I said before. It is physically unplugged from all ports and connections. It's just sitting in the metal casing. So unless they've managed to make computer viruses physically airborne it would be impossible to touch it in the hard drive.
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Even that's apparently possible these days... "Air gap"?
 
Bugsy said:
My stupid self was downloading freeware. I should also state I had no antivirus running. Not a promising combination. Whether antivirus would have stopped it is uncertain. I'll also state I have spent the better part of a decade downloading freeware for whatever purpose and never had problems. Not stating it was from that for certain, but I was in the process of that task when the problems arose so. I can say with certainty it wasn't internet pron <shifty eyes>!
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Did you get a chance to find out what's the name of the malware? Malware and trojans are really rampant nowadays. Just last week, I removed a trojan from my mom's computer. I think she might have caught it from an infected social media weblink which is one of the most frequent places where this virus originates from. Luckily she has Microsoft SE running and it caught the virus but I had to run the scan twice to remove the trojan completely and I don't even know it's completely removed as the virus infects Registry files and I am not sure Microsoft SE is able to remove virus from Registry files. The trojan was really bad. It changed everything on my mom's computer, her wallpaper, her youtube video homepage which forced her to always watch youtube videos with ads, her browser homepage...
 
JSOP said:
Did you get a chance to find out what's the name of the malware? Malware and trojans are really rampant nowadays. Just last week, I removed a trojan from my mom's computer. I think she might have caught it from an infected social media weblink which is one of the most frequent places where this virus originates from. Luckily she has Microsoft SE running and it caught the virus but I had to run the scan twice to remove the trojan completely and I don't even know it's completely removed as the virus infects Registry files and I am not sure Microsoft SE is able to remove virus from Registry files. The trojan was really bad. It changed everything on my mom's computer, her wallpaper, her youtube video homepage which forced her to always watch youtube videos with ads, her browser homepage...
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I'm sorry I didn't get the name.
 
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