[skew]

Hi all, merry christmas, sorry about the gratuitous attention grabbing title.

Ok so my wife's dad (running xp on some random PC and has just dropped £200 on getting it cleaned) has just received a mail from my wife. The mail had an attachment of a screen grab to him (something from her system she needed to show him). As well as the attachment he received a huge bunch of porn (not sent by her clearly). Along with the attachment and with the porn were pics of our wedding that she hadn't sent either him and are only hosted on our .mac site and locally on our computer.

WTF?

She has test sent the mail to me and there is nothing there that shouldn't be.

He's freaking out.

What on earth do we say to a 70 year old newbie?

The mac the mail was sent from is an intelcd2 macbook running 10.5.2.

Help.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by skew 

Hi all, merry christmas, sorry about the gratuitous attention grabbing title.

Ok so my wife's dad (running xp on some random PC and has just dropped £200 on getting it cleaned) has just received a mail from my wife. The mail had an attachment of a screen grab to him (something from her system she needed to show him). As well as the attachment he received a huge bunch of porn (not sent by her clearly). Along with the attachment and with the porn were pics of our wedding that she hadn't sent either him and are only hosted on our .mac site and locally on our computer.

WTF?

She has test sent the mail to me and there is nothing there that shouldn't be.

He's freaking out.

What on earth do we say to a 70 year old newbie?

The mac the mail was sent from is an intelcd2 macbook running 10.5.2.

Help.

10.5.2 is not out yet.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by skew 

Hi all, merry christmas, sorry about the gratuitous attention grabbing title.

Ok so my wife's dad (running xp on some random PC and has just dropped £200 on getting it cleaned) has just received a mail from my wife. The mail had an attachment of a screen grab to him (something from her system she needed to show him). As well as the attachment he received a huge bunch of porn (not sent by her clearly). Along with the attachment and with the porn were pics of our wedding that she hadn't sent either him and are only hosted on our .mac site and locally on our computer.

WTF?

She has test sent the mail to me and there is nothing there that shouldn't be.

He's freaking out.

What on earth do we say to a 70 year old newbie?

The mac the mail was sent from is an intelcd2 macbook running 10.5.2.

Help.

Wait, did this 'porn explosion' happen on a PC or a Mac?

[Cold Warrior]

Sounds like your wife attached a bunch of pr0n by mistake.

There are no viruses in the wild for OS X, as referenced in such recent threads as
http://forums.macnn.com/82/applicati...worm-software/ and
http://forums.macnn.com/82/applicati...34/virus-scan/

[Cadaver]

Or the PC the mail was sent to is infected up the wazoo with malware.

Edit: Wait - did you just say your father-in-law spent £200 on getting his machine cleaned of viruses and malware?! Seems like a awful lot of money for just that. I think it was your father-in-law who got cleaned, not the computer.

[skew]

Just to clarify.

The porn explosion happened on the fathers PC. My wife is running 10.5.1 ( sorry was just reading about 10.5.2 when I posted, must have been still in my head).

We test sent the same mail to my mac. No porn cane through just the attachments that should have been there.

Yes her father did just spend £200 on getting his PC cleaned, can you believe it? No wonder PC centric I.T. bods don't want apple gaining share. Less work for them.

I checked the outbox of the sent mail - there was only the correct attachment, nothing else. And certainly no "accidentally attached porn".

I've heard PC's can get infected with an hour of being connected to the net so I assumed it would be a virus his side but this is the question...

How did our wedding pics (we've never sent these to him via mail but they are online on our .mac site and we have sent him a link) get mixed up with the porn that appeared to come from my wife?

Could a virus go through his hardrive and select random pics from his recent browsing history for example? Or something like it?

I'm no expert on PC stuff.

Thanks for your help.

[angelmb]

While I don't use it at all, I have here an intel iMac which has VMware Fusion installed running XP, we installed the free AVG antivirus and the commercial SpywareDoctor to avoid this kind of cr**. I am no expert neither when it comes to PCs but they were rated as best in the market by pcworld magazine.

[dowNNshift]

There are several different types of viruses with multiple points of entry. Having good quality anti-virus software running is critical.

Malware can be anything ranging from the nagging toolbar accidentally added which tracks your viewing patterns, to a rogue ActiveX control that installs a rootkit and prevents your ability to access the Control Panel, etc.

$400 (converting to US Dollars) is crazy high though for a repair. Our company charges clients on average ~$85 to $150 for the worst of cases we come across. Those usually require a complete backup, reformat, and reinstallation of the OS. Unfortunately though, the worst cases usually are seniors that have just gotten onto the internet. Lots of dark alleys... and its hard to explain to them that you can't just click on anything. Reverse Parental Controls are usually out of the question too.

Things to keep in mind though;
a. The first thing viruses typically go for is your Outlook address book.
b. Don't run competing Malware-Fixit type apps, they just bloat your registry and slow down your PC -- instead opt for a quality, light weight, and through AntiViral program like ESET NOD32.
c. If they're choosing a first computer -- a iMac or Mac Mini will keep them much, much safer on the net.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by skew 

Could a virus go through his hardrive and select random pics from his recent browsing history for example?

Yes. Which also means someone using that PC has been surfing for porn, too.

[moonmonkey]

what kind of porn?

[bishopazrael]

Moonmonkey... does it matter? I can tell you that old folks don't take this kind of stuff easy. They tend to take it personal. Trust me.

Skew,
allow me to help with a few things. First, you need to get some software that you can download on your mac and put it on a USB stick or you can download it on his PC.,.. either way right now what you need to concern yourself with is just getting his PC cleaned and safe again. Just so you know, I own an onsite computer repair company. All this software I mention is free and all my customers know about it. You can google any of this stuff.

FIrst you need a good virus scanner. 2 free ones that are excellent are either AVG from free.grisoft.com or avast! from avast.com. Install either, not both! Update it after its installed, then reboot to safe mode to scan your c drive.

Second you need to get some spyware coverage. Unlike antivirus where you should just have one installed, spyware you should have at least all 4 of these installed:
spywareblaster
spybot search and destroy
Windows defender
ad aware
hijack this (optional, and its a very simple program to install... or run.. but it's a bitch to run and not get jacked up in the process. ONly a professional should use hijack this to remove spyware start up items. If you're going to use it please be patient. And use their forums.)

Upon installing all of these items, update them all, run the protection built in, then do a scan with each, starting your scans with Adaware. It doesnt have any protection unless you pay, but it's the best at finding spyware. After that, you need to run spyware s&D. Then go from there.

And Yes... your father in law got raped. Something like this should only be around $100 here in NM. If you have any other questions just PM me and I'll respond.

One other thing... you want to install and update in normal mode, but to scan y ou'll want to be in safe mode... do that by usually tapping F8 for the dialog.

Also, if I were you, I would search for all of this stuff on your mac, get it dl'd to a disk and then take it to your father in law and install it from there. God knows what kind of shape his internet connection will be in. Trust me save yourself some hassle and get it here and now.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by bishopazrael 

And Yes... your father in law got raped. Something like this should only be around $100 here in NM.

You can't just directly compare UK rates with US rates. It doesn't work that way, and not just since the dollar is hardly worth the paper it's printed on.

Hourly wages, taxes, and general cost of living all figure into what he paid for the cleanup, and are vastly different from what you might expect in NM.

[gpeden]

Hi bishopazrael,

Thanks for the consise info and freeware suggestions - copied that to my wife to help bolster the protection for her PC.

[bishopazrael]

I'm glad I could help. Any further questions just let me know.

[peeb]

Buy your dad a Mac as a late Christmas present.

[OwlBoy]

Originally Posted by peeb 

Buy your dad a Mac as a late Christmas present.

[analogika]

btw:

Originally Posted by moonmonkey 

what kind of porn?

[Chongo]

2 Girls 1 Cup?