Fishing and Phishing/Malware and Virus

This stock photo is an example of how unstable the Internet can be

We are standing on a shaky pier, looking out into the murky depths of an unforeseeable future in the vast unknown.

So, I have been fishing. This particular virus is known to run over port 3127. I know. Many of you are probably asking "What the heck is a port?" To see a list of ports, you can go here. To see a description of what ports are, you can go here. I don't recommend it for the weak of heart. If you work with computers you quickly come to realize another old saying. The more I know, the more I realize what I "don't" know.

The more I researched this particular virus, I came to discover that it is designed to look for port 3127 on a machine. If that port is in use by another application, it then attempts to use port 3128. So on and so forth until port 3198.

I did not have the time to monitor all these ports, so I selected about ten and placed the monitor list on. The amount of log files that came back was seriously overwhelming. I took the monitors off and reported the findings and hoped that what I had found were indeed "false positives."

Which brings me to malware. There is a lot of malware out and about on the web. I use three programs to scan for it on my computers. Malwarebytes, Ad-aware, and Spybot Search & Destroy. I know there are others, and I have used them. I do notice that from time to time I have to remove and re-install Ad-aware. Ad-aware and Spybot tend to conflict with one another, but I do my best to keep my machines covered. Keep in mind that I use the free versions of these products. I know I stated earlier that you get what you pay for, I do pay for anti-virus protection. Malware is a different entity.

Let me take a moment to warn you about installing free software. Many times the free software has made a deal with Yahoo or Google and will try to slide a "toolbar" into the installation. Read each window before clicking the Next button. I recommend that you remove the check mark from the toolbars (or anything else they might be trying to sneak past you) unless you know specifically what the toolbar is and what it does. I don't like them.

Another interesting fact is that because there are so many different anti-virus applications, and they all tend to be in competition with one another, they usually cannot agree on a name of any particular virus. One product may call a certain virus mydoom, while another calls it Novarg. Then there are various versions of the virus. The first one may be named mydoom, the second wave may be titled mydoom.b, third mydoom.c and so on and so forth.

Then there is the generic groups. Where an application will group many different kinds of malware into one generic pile. One example is the Mal/Generic-A virus. For all the different types of threats that fall into this category, you can go here.

This particular virus has been accused of being a false positive. This indicates that an anti-virus program has tagged a file that looks suspicious and claims that it is a virus or malware. Other anti-virus packages state that the file in question is indeed "NOT" suspicious and that the other program has what is relatively known as a false alarm. See here.

Regardless, all of this can boggle the mind of an average computer user. You may say "How in the hell are we supposed to keep up with all of this malarkey?" The short answer. You can't. I can't. I have problems with my computer from time to time. My best tool is Google search. I read ten hits or more on each problem I have. Are other folks having the same problem? If so, how did they fix it?

Anyway, in conclusion - it is a mess out there. We do the best we can. I always compare it to driving. Traffic on the Internet gets congested. We can run over a chuck hole or a nail at any time and get a flat tire. As careful as we are, there will always be risk. And, remember. There is always that little window where a new virus is created and can wreak havoc before the anti-virus companies have time to create a fix for it. Especially with the speed of the data these days. It can almost take the fun out of it for us. Hopefully, things will get better. Things will get safer. Products will improve.

Notice: The author of the blog does not profess to know it all. The thoughts and words in this post are what I currently understand at this point and time in my life. It may not be completely accurate and I might even disagree with it in the future. I do the best I can to understand and absorb and then attempt to explain the subject with how I perceive it. Do not take my belief as gospel, but ask or research many different views on the subject at hand to come to your own conclusions.