Malware corrupts its own filename? This is freaking me out.

Norm Fowler wrote:

John Doe used his keyboard to write :
Charlie cdknospam msn.com wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:

something else odd going on, probably LO specific

OK, now I have a "properly" misbehaving file, shows in a CMD
window as two question marks where the U+202E character is

rather than "by_Hexe" the malware author should have
construed a filename appearing to end with "annexe"

As far as I know, the more annoying malware can replicate
itself using different names in different locations. There
usually is a similarity between the different names.

Automatic removal may not work properly, and wild card
searches may or may not work completely. I had a bout with one
earlier this year, and ended up doing manual removal. (And
changing all my passwords.)

Making complete backups of your Windows C drive solves all your
problems (including that one).

I have been doing systematic images of my operating system since
Win2000 and find it is the easiest way of solving either malware
or virus infection. If I think either one of these has gotten
onto my computer I can wipe the partition and replace an image
in about 20 minutes and be back to work with no further
problems. This seems to me to be the best protection that money
cannot buy.

Yep. I've been doing it since Windows 95-98. Changed my personal
computing world. All you have to know is which few data files need
to be copied out. But you should know that anyway.

Another thing it does, most importantly, is to provide incremental
backups of the operating system. That's especially useful during
the initial installation, but it works throughout the
installation's lifetime.

It's the only way to fly through Windows...

On Wed, 24 Sep 2014 09:27:03 -0700, Norm Fowler wrote:

John Doe used his keyboard to write :
Charlie cdknospam msn.com wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:

something else odd going on, probably LO specific

OK, now I have a "properly" misbehaving file, shows in a CMD
window as two question marks where the U+202E character is

rather than "by_Hexe" the malware author should have construed
a filename appearing to end with "annexe"

As far as I know, the more annoying malware can replicate itself
using different names in different locations. There usually is a
similarity between the different names.

Automatic removal may not work properly, and wild card searches
may or may not work completely. I had a bout with one earlier
this year, and ended up doing manual removal. (And changing all
my passwords.)

Making complete backups of your Windows C drive solves all your
problems (including that one).

I have been doing systematic images of my operating system since
Win2000 and find it is the easiest way of solving either malware or
virus infection. If I think either one of these has gotten onto my
computer I can wipe the partition and replace an image in about 20
minutes and be back to work with no further problems. This seems to me
to be the best protection that money cannot buy. :-)

How often do you create a new backup? What I'm really asking is, how much of
your work do you lose when you restore a backup? I'm not inferring or
assuming anything; I'm just asking.

Char Jackson none none.invalid wrote:

Norm Fowler NormF4 spoof.com wrote:
John Doe used his keyboard to write :
Charlie cdknospam msn.com wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:

something else odd going on, probably LO specific

OK, now I have a "properly" misbehaving file, shows in a CMD
window as two question marks where the U+202E character is

rather than "by_Hexe" the malware author should have
construed a filename appearing to end with "annexe"

As far as I know, the more annoying malware can replicate
itself using different names in different locations. There
usually is a similarity between the different names.

Automatic removal may not work properly, and wild card
searches may or may not work completely. I had a bout with
one earlier this year, and ended up doing manual removal.
(And changing all my passwords.)

Making complete backups of your Windows C drive solves all
your problems (including that one).

I have been doing systematic images of my operating system since
Win2000 and find it is the easiest way of solving either malware
or virus infection. If I think either one of these has gotten
onto my computer I can wipe the partition and replace an image
in about 20 minutes and be back to work with no further
problems. This seems to me to be the best protection that money
cannot buy. :-)

How often do you create a new backup? What I'm really asking is,
how much of your work do you lose when you restore a backup? I'm
not inferring or assuming anything; I'm just asking.

Since everybody should know which data files in their system need
to be backed up, there should be no loss. Before you restore drive
C, you copy out those files you think have changed. In the case of
a virus, that might be a bit tricky given the time constraint (you
can shut down the Internet), but the virus isn't going to affect
those files and in most cases you have plenty of time to properly
copy out your important data files before doing the restore.

Another option is to have any important data files go directly to
your secondary drive.

John Doe brought next idea :
Char Jackson none none.invalid wrote:

Norm Fowler NormF4 spoof.com wrote:
John Doe used his keyboard to write :
Charlie cdknospam msn.com wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:

something else odd going on, probably LO specific

OK, now I have a "properly" misbehaving file, shows in a CMD
window as two question marks where the U+202E character is

rather than "by_Hexe" the malware author should have
construed a filename appearing to end with "annexe"

As far as I know, the more annoying malware can replicate
itself using different names in different locations. There
usually is a similarity between the different names.

Automatic removal may not work properly, and wild card
searches may or may not work completely. I had a bout with
one earlier this year, and ended up doing manual removal.
(And changing all my passwords.)

Making complete backups of your Windows C drive solves all
your problems (including that one).

I have been doing systematic images of my operating system since
Win2000 and find it is the easiest way of solving either malware
or virus infection. If I think either one of these has gotten
onto my computer I can wipe the partition and replace an image
in about 20 minutes and be back to work with no further
problems. This seems to me to be the best protection that money
cannot buy. :-)

How often do you create a new backup? What I'm really asking is,
how much of your work do you lose when you restore a backup? I'm
not inferring or assuming anything; I'm just asking.

Since everybody should know which data files in their system need
to be backed up, there should be no loss. Before you restore drive
C, you copy out those files you think have changed. In the case of
a virus, that might be a bit tricky given the time constraint (you
can shut down the Internet), but the virus isn't going to affect
those files and in most cases you have plenty of time to properly
copy out your important data files before doing the restore.

Another option is to have any important data files go directly to
your secondary drive.

To me backup and making an image of your operating system are two
different things. I do daily automatic backups of several different
files to several different hard drives one being on a home network. I
do an image of the operating system once every month or two, depending
on what changes I may have made. If I am going to install some new
major software I will usually do an image before installing, as I would
rather replace the OS as try to remove everything the new program may
have installed. The frequency of doing an image is up to you, but
backups of your data files should be done daily, if you use the
computer a lot. To protect against the recent barrage of ransomware I
do a backup of all my partitions on a USB drive and then unplug it to
protect those files. I do this about once a week, that way I may lose
some files, but will be able to recover pretty much everything.

Norm

Norm Fowler wrote:

John Doe brought next idea :
Char Jackson none none.invalid wrote:
Norm Fowler NormF4 spoof.com wrote:
John Doe used his keyboard to write :
Charlie cdknospam msn.com wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:

something else odd going on, probably LO specific

OK, now I have a "properly" misbehaving file, shows in a
CMD window as two question marks where the U+202E
character is

rather than "by_Hexe" the malware author should have
construed a filename appearing to end with "annexe"

As far as I know, the more annoying malware can replicate
itself using different names in different locations. There
usually is a similarity between the different names.

Automatic removal may not work properly, and wild card
searches may or may not work completely. I had a bout with
one earlier this year, and ended up doing manual removal.
(And changing all my passwords.)

Making complete backups of your Windows C drive solves all
your problems (including that one).

I have been doing systematic images of my operating system
since Win2000 and find it is the easiest way of solving
either malware or virus infection. If I think either one of
these has gotten onto my computer I can wipe the partition
and replace an image in about 20 minutes and be back to work
with no further problems. This seems to me to be the best
protection that money cannot buy. :-)

How often do you create a new backup? What I'm really asking
is, how much of your work do you lose when you restore a
backup? I'm not inferring or assuming anything; I'm just
asking.

Since everybody should know which data files in their system
need to be backed up, there should be no loss. Before you
restore drive C, you copy out those files you think have
changed. In the case of a virus, that might be a bit tricky
given the time constraint (you can shut down the Internet), but
the virus isn't going to affect those files and in most cases
you have plenty of time to properly copy out your important
data files before doing the restore.

Another option is to have any important data files go directly
to your secondary drive.

To me backup and making an image of your operating system are
two different things. I do daily automatic backups of several
different files to several different hard drives one being on a
home network. I do an image of the operating system once every
month or two, depending on what changes I may have made. If I am
going to install some new major software I will usually do an
image before installing, as I would rather replace the OS as try
to remove everything the new program may have installed.

Yep. That applies when installing drivers or configuring your
system too. I make backups of drive C frequently when doing an
installation. Anything that's time-consuming and prone to mistake
that might be difficult to undo.







The frequency of doing an image is up to you, but backups of
your data files should be done daily, if you use the computer a
lot. To protect against the recent barrage of ransomware I do a
backup of all my partitions on a USB drive and then unplug it to
protect those files. I do this about once a week, that way I may
lose some files, but will be able to recover pretty much
everything.

Norm