My PC has become a zombie. : (

  • Thread starter Thread starter OM
  • Start date Start date
O

OM

My PC has become a zombie.
I hadn't realised it before.
I'm getting thousands and thousands of emails rejected and sent back
via my anti virus program AVG.
I assume my PC has been cpatured?

I run the AVG program and sometimes it cathces and removes viruses and
most other times it comes up clean.

But... I assume, all is not well as I still suffer from the thousands
of reject emails.

What do I do?
How do I get a complete clean system again?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.


OM
 
OM said:
My PC has become a zombie.
I hadn't realised it before.
I'm getting thousands and thousands of emails rejected and sent back
via my anti virus program AVG.
I assume my PC has been cpatured?

I run the AVG program and sometimes it cathces and removes viruses and
most other times it comes up clean.

But... I assume, all is not well as I still suffer from the thousands
of reject emails.

What do I do?
How do I get a complete clean system again?
Click to expand...
Sounds like you may have a case of de worms. Forget about AVG as it clearly
isn't doing its job, ie protecting you from viruses and dealing with them.
So first of all disable it.

Next, go to
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym and do an
online system scan. It's very comprehensive (can take well over an hour
depending on the number of files and their size on HDD), it will pick up
spyware problems as well as viruses, and will finish by listing all known
malware on your pc, and files infected. If it finds any problems, print this
out, then come back and tell us what it has detected.
 
OM said:
My PC has become a zombie.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, or perhaps not.
I hadn't realised it before.
I'm getting thousands and thousands of emails rejected and sent back
via my anti virus program AVG.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by that? legitimate email rejections come from mail
servers.
I assume my PC has been cpatured?
Click to expand...

Not nesser-celery; unless you have actually sent thousands of emails.
It looks like you could be a victim of backscatter caused by spammers,
and made worse by clueless mail admins and other 'bouncers' of spam or
viruses. This is what often happens when a spammer (or malware) uses
your address in the "From:" line of an email.

If this is the case, you will just have to ride out the storm.
I run the AVG program and sometimes it cathces and removes viruses and
most other times it comes up clean.

But... I assume, all is not well as I still suffer from the thousands
of reject emails.

What do I do?
How do I get a complete clean system again?
Click to expand...

Your system may be ok, but search this group for previous advice from
the likes of "David H. Lipman" and others, which is given to people
who suspect their system is infested.
 
I hadn't realised it before.
What do you mean by that? legitimate email rejections come from mail
servers.


Not nesser-celery; unless you have actually sent thousands of emails.
It looks like you could be a victim of backscatter caused by spammers,
and made worse by clueless mail admins and other 'bouncers' of spam or
viruses. This is what often happens when a spammer (or malware) uses
your address in the "From:" line of an email.

If this is the case, you will just have to ride out the storm.
Click to expand...

Ant, thanks for the reply.
I've rerouted all of my email so that it comes from a Yahoo account
now.
All email for the email account I have will go through the Yahoo
account and spam will be filtered out.
I thought this would solve the problem.
But... I'm getting THOUSANDS of emails a day coming back rejected.
They all are tagged with AVG.
I normally get this kind of email returned when I send email to an
email account that doesn't exist.
I will try the link above for the virus check and see what I get.
 
My PC has become a zombie.
I hadn't realised it before.
I'm getting thousands and thousands of emails rejected and sent back
via my anti virus program AVG.
I assume my PC has been cpatured?
Click to expand...

Is your PC actually doing the sending? Check the headers on any of
the rejected emails (if the bounces include the original message). See
if the IP is consistent, and the same as yours.

There are a few spamming viruses or ratbags around that substitute
legitimate email addresses as the sender, so you may just be an
innocent, though the thousands of the bounces suggests you might be
"zombied"

I run the AVG program and sometimes it cathces and removes viruses and
most other times it comes up clean.

But... I assume, all is not well as I still suffer from the thousands
of reject emails.
Click to expand...

halt them at the server.
What do I do?
How do I get a complete clean system again?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.


OM
Click to expand...

--

Find out about Australia's most dangerous Doomsday Cult:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/wanglese/pebble.htm

"You can't fool me, it's turtles all the way down."
 
My PC has become a zombie.
I hadn't realised it before.
I'm getting thousands and thousands of emails rejected and sent back
via my anti virus program AVG.
I assume my PC has been cpatured?

I run the AVG program and sometimes it cathces and removes viruses and
most other times it comes up clean.

But... I assume, all is not well as I still suffer from the thousands
of reject emails.

What do I do?
How do I get a complete clean system again?

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Stop using AVG for a start, and invest in something decent like NOD32,
regardless of whether or not your PC has been infiltrated.
If you are at the level of not being 'sure', then you need to utilise the
best protection you can, and AVG is not the best place to start. IMHO
 
Ant said:
:




Perhaps, or perhaps not.




What do you mean by that? legitimate email rejections come from mail
servers.




Not nesser-celery; unless you have actually sent thousands of emails.
It looks like you could be a victim of backscatter caused by spammers,
and made worse by clueless mail admins and other 'bouncers' of spam or
viruses. This is what often happens when a spammer (or malware) uses
your address in the "From:" line of an email.

If this is the case, you will just have to ride out the storm.




Your system may be ok, but search this group for previous advice from
the likes of "David H. Lipman" and others, which is given to people
who suspect their system is infested.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it might be emails 'masquerading' as having come from you
rather than actually coming from your machine. I assume that you've
never used your 'real' email address when posting to newsgroups etc -
great way to get your address harvested by spammers.
 
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