A good day's work

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September 15th, 2003, 09:16 PM
Jeff the Brit

A good day's work

This afternoon's bundle of fun: Win98 box, very slow bootup, rather flaky. Antivirus last updated back in 1999. Installed AVG, bootup scanner went nuts seeing viruses out the wazoo. Installed latest updates. One whole hour later, it's found 13,642 viruses, mostly .vbs scripts. AVG chokes trying to delete this lot, over 300 Mb of 10 to 12 kb files, largely in the 5 Gb of restore files from PQ Second Chance installed on the box. Dump temp files and other garbage. Customer now has 10 Gb free space instead of 2 Gb. Leave after setting defrag running ... looks like an all-nighter, it's not been run EVER !

This evening's bundle of fun: XP box, customer got it second hand, previous owner was fond of Kazaa, Morpheus and other spyware infested crapware. No antivirus at all. Installed AVG and updates. Much later, it's found 34,763 infected files, all sorts of trojans, LoveLetter, worms, diallers, .vbs scripts. New personal record established. Previous best about 18,000 or so.
Had time for 2 cups of coffee and several ciggies while AVG deleted all the infected stuff. Dump several Gb worth of temp files, bung in service pack and assorted patches and a real firewall. I could have used the factory restore CD, but the customer wanted to keep the extensive porn and music collection amassed by the previous owner. Customer is always right :) Relax over well-earned beer at 3am

Anybody got world records for number of infected files?
September 16th, 2003, 08:35 AM
firemonkey

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff the Brit

Anybody got world records for number of infected files?

I don't have close to that number, but I have had the same customer come in 4 times with his computer cause he had porn dialers, a spy ware. this was in the smae month!! after we removed it all, he kept going back an getting it again. I guess he liked his porn.

but on the note that the customer didn't want to lose it, we have had a customer pay us to back his up it was over 4 gigs!

the funnest quality check ever ;)
September 16th, 2003, 08:55 AM
Stalemate

On a Wintel/Mac network where I was interning before hitting the job market, I got over 6000 instances of the same virus (no AV on any of the machines), so that's nowhere close to your record. :p
September 16th, 2003, 09:16 AM
Ya_know

Worst one I ever saw, about 40 files, maybe 3 or 4 different virus. I was in a panic state to clear that one up. If I saw 34k I would have put on butyl rubber gloves, a filtered mask, and a full protective suit...then called disease control. Man you have got some tolerance!
September 16th, 2003, 11:58 AM
amyb

Wow

Never had to experience that kind of joy. ;)
September 16th, 2003, 01:37 PM
Matridom

worse i saw was a guy who paid $1800 to have a 1 gig drive recovered. it was all porn. This however was in the days of dial-up and broadband was a rumor... 1 gig back then was an impressive collection.
September 17th, 2003, 02:15 AM
Radical Dreamer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matridom

worse i saw was a guy who paid $1800 to have a 1 gig drive recovered. it was all porn. This however was in the days of dial-up and broadband was a rumor... 1 gig back then was an impressive collection.

Today, most people have that much in their temp files :D