This could happen to your computor

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
My computor would not open my e mail this morning, and other sights like my pictures. I found out a bottom feeder hi-jacked my information. And for 500.00 I could retrieve it. (that is what it cost someone else. I got this information from the repair guy) The only way I could get back on line was wipe everything off of my compoutor, and start over. Pictures, and everything. I refuse to pay this a hole one cent. I am going to miss my pictures. If you guys are not backing up your stuff now is a good time to satrt. I didn't. I am using a old computor now. I'm getting my new one out tomorrow. Let me tell you this really sucks big time. I just had my computor in the shop to removea a virous. Now two days lter this. I have no idea how I picked up this new problen. Stan
 
That sucks! My wife is the computer guru in our house and I think (hope) everything is backed up. Seems there is always someone, somewhere, ready to screw someone over.
 
What where you using for an anti virus protection program??? I found that you can use the free stuff if you like to fool with it every single day. IF you don't then you need to spend the money and use one of the full service programs to help keep your computer safe.

I also copy pictures on to a thumb drive and disk in addition to my computer. The thumb drive is some where else on the property. The disk is rotated through my safety deposit box. I have two and switch them once each month.
 
I use a service called Carbonite , it backs up my computer every day , automatically . Costs $55 a year . I've used it 3 times now , 2 viruses and a HD failure .....
 
I had malware for a while,but you get pop ups everyday trying to sell you there service.
 
I Use Avira their free version. Use it on all my PC's and laptops. Have been for years. You deal with the occasional pop-up

These days you really need to be running more than one.
I also run Spybot and Malware.
 
1. I'll bet you are running Internet Exploder?

2. You need to find some better "experts", as it would really surprise me if your stuff can't be recovered.
 
You didn't happen to get a call from an Indian "Windows Support" scammer did you? He will claim your computer is sending out error messages and he will want you to key in codes so he can take control of your PC and "fix" it for you. Sounds like he "fixed" yours real good.

Google "Windows Tech Support Scam" for more info.
 
Been there and done that several times over the years. I finally drank Steve Jobs kool aid and am now a die hard apple fan. No virus problem, ever. Backs everything up to the cloud automatically and syncs my iPhone,iPad,iMac, and Mac book. I have had a few mechanical issues but haven't lost any data so far. Just get device to Apple Store and they'll fix, usually free. Or I'll buy a new one.
 
A computer that is not backed up is a failure waiting to happen. There are inexpensive backup systems out there that do this daily.
 
Back everything up regularly. Get a good internet security package ( Anti virus + firewall etc ) Such as AVG, Kaspersky etc. Download Malwarebytes which is free (and just about the best piece of antimalware software on the planet)It does not clash with any other antimalware and it will find trojans etc that your AV might miss and scan often. Update your computer regularly, better still set it to update automatically.If possible use Firefox instead of I.E. as your default browser. Last but by no means least if you get an e mail from someone you don't know ( Or it says its from your bank/ internet service provider/ facebook etc) and it tells you to click on a link or attachment DON'T open it.
Malwarebytes
 
One of the most common way to pick something like that up is from attachments in emails. My SIL is compelled to open anything she gets in her in box because it might be funny. She spends a good deal of money every year getting her computer wiped and everything reinstalled. Don't open attachments! another good spot to get these things is through the "free" sites for some of the easy to play games or as someone mentioned porn sites. My daughter loves the stupid games. She picked up a virus a couple of years ago from one of those sites that put her computer in a loop causing it to burn up the chip.

Best prevention is to use a good anti virus program. Sure there are free ones out there but you do get what you pay for.

Apple doesn't get attacked because they are such a small percentage of the market. Why write a virus/bot for computers covering less than 7% of the market?

Rick
 
I have used Carbonite for a few years and it is great! They are located in the US so you can understand them when you talk to them. It is not only good for backing up files in case of a virus, but if you buy a new computer, you can transfer all the files to it. The only thing you lose is something that you have not saved. I use a lot of spread sheets in my trucking business and I save every entry almost the instant I make it and have not lost anything. Well worth the small cost.
 
A drum of blank discs and or/ usb sicks are dirt cheap these days. Its amazing how much data they will hold.
 
I am starting to use Ubuntu (linux) on my laptop and eventually it will be on my desk tops also. No antivirus needed. I really like it. Windows is on its way out in my house.
 
I use two computers the one I'm using now for surfing the net and one that's not hooked to the net to store important stuff.Plus I have the disk that I use to transfer everything.Kinda of a pain but if something happens to this computer or it gets hacked no big deal.
 
Stay away from the free porn sites, free game sites, free porn sites, free downloads from sites with no history. free porn sites, sites that don't end in .com/org/net and have a non US or Canadian/British identifier (.ru, .de,.ge) and free porn sites. That will solve half your problem. Get thee away from IE and the Microsoft email system. Make hard copies of the important stuff. You can use an off site backup for your pictures or have them transferred to a CD or print them onto photo quality paper.
 
We do regular backups, but not much on the computer that anyone could use anyway and absolutely no financial info on the computer.
 
(quoted from post at 05:34:40 10/23/14) You probably had Cryptolocker on your computer. There is no cure for this after it encrypts your files except paying ransom. If you have a backup drive hooked to your computer it will also encrypt it.
Explanation of Cryptolocker

This looks like it might be it by the description. And there is no way to get data back if this is what happened, it's very sneaky. But, if you do pay them the high amount they ask, they actually do get your data back. So they are "good" bad guys, but only because they know if they didn't give the data back, people wouldn't pay. The data is actually lost, as they encrypt it on your computer, no way to hack it to get it back without their key.

If it was not this, then there is an easy way to get data back by moving the drive to another computer, or using a Linux live disk. Just boot off of the cd or usb drive and copy the data to a usb stick, disk burner, or other usb type drive. Very easy and works well.

I use Linux too as my only system, Windows gets used only to help walk people through stuff. I've been the area "tech" for years and fixed a number of systems. For my personal system, nice to have something that just works without all the antivirus, scanning, and thinking about stuff that a Windows system requires. Something that "just works" is nice.

Free antivirus is good enough. Or get something when on sale, there's usually one of the main ones that's free after rebate if you look, every year. I recommend Panda Cloud free, it topped the testing charts of the free ones last I looked, detected the best, it's been around for a long time if you've never heard of it. If you pay for something, Malwarebytes would be where to put it, you can get a lifetime license for less than $20. Also, install Malwarebytes anti-exploit in addition to regular Malwarebytes, and Microsoft EMET. And use about anything other than Internet Explorer, and don't open email attachments if you don't have to. With the web browsers, Chrome or Firefox, install adblock and noscript at least.
 
The only back up I have is I print out everything I want to save. Nothing kept on computor only. Would not even know how to do the backup you are talking about.
 
My company uses McAfee on all our PC systems and they provide it to employees for home use for free! So I have that and two external hard drives. Got the second one (an Iomega one terrabyte) recently at an on-line auction in a box of stuff that included a wireless router, wireless mouse and keyboard and a printer, all of it works. Oh, I paid $8 for the whole box! Have an automatic back-up that runs once a week and I do a manual back-up to the Iomega once a week or so of the data files.
 
Hi
We get those guys calling all the time here in Canada. i just tell them I'm not that stupid, and why don't they just go get a proper job! Then Hang up. i have heard from a few friends that they are getting very aggressive and will call back if you hang up on them now. Not happened here to us yet, but i Can get as nasty as they are aggressive if pushed enough.
Regards Robert
 
Several years ago Wife installed McAfee on ours after I told her not to. Let it run out after 1 year but still after as long as had that computor was causing problems. Never again for McAfee. Better to just replace computor.
 
Yup, that's because there are only two basic types of hard drives: 1.) Those that have crashed and 2.) those that are going to crash...
 
Unfortunately you are the victim of what is called ransomware. It is very sophisticated and unless you pay them what they ask, your files are toast.
 
I had Mcafee and Norton at different times. Mcafee came free on the new computer for 1 year.

Paid big bucks for the Norton, but all it did was burn my CPU at 97% any time the computer was running.

Looked online and saw many people having the same issue, and Norton was just blowing everyone off. No chance of a refund. I tried living with it but I couldn't do anything, so I had to eat 18 months of Norton subscription and uninstall it.

Never going to pay for an antivirus again. I use AVG on the home PC and don't open email attachments even from people I know.
 
My last two computers that I bought, a Sony Vaio laptop and desktop were both pre-installed with McAfee, god knows why because BOTH gave me trouble until I ditched it in favour of another company's security software. Since then both have never given me any bother.
 
I sound like a broken record, but as a long-time Linux user (about 18 years now), I really can't relate to the malware problems experienced by most Windows users. Linux is far from free of malware, but it is several orders of magnitude better than any release of Windows, with or without antivirus.
 
If you bought a house and discovered the builder had neglected to put locks on the doors and windows, would you be surprised if the house kept getting burglarized? Would you insist that the builder come back and fix his problems? Or would you just accept that it's up to you to secure the house as best you can? Well, that's the situation with Microsoft Windows. It is an operating system which is insecure by design, and for the most part Microsoft has given only lip service to fixing its security problems. Their concern is and has been keeping the system as easy to use as possible, and if there's a choice between easy and secure, easy wins every time.

If everyone continues to pay for and use this miserable excuse for a computer operating system, we can expect more of the same for the foreseeable future.
 
And you would not find a computor store around here that would know what you are talking about when you say Linux.
 

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