Kazaa virus possibilities

[bigrandydavid]

I keep reading about people catching nasty things whilst using kazaa.

i was wondering how a virus can get on to your system when file sharing.
This is what I thought about downloading mp3 files.....

1) I have a firewall installed
2) I have anti virus software up to date
3) I always scan any download before playing it
4) If I found any unusual file in my shared folder I would delete it.

therefore I am safe.

am i a simplistic moron or am i right? :-bash

 

[rolfw]

Unfortunatley BRD, it is more likely to be the former.

Firewalls are helpful, but once you open up to shares with something like Kazzaa, almost anything can get down.

 

[bigrandydavid]

Unfortunatley BRD, it is more likely to be the former.

oh bugger! but wouldn`t your firewall detect if any kind of trojan horse attempted to send information out of your pc? and given that a malicous virus would reap havoc is it safe to say if i`ve detected no unusual activity then its ok?

or am i still a simplistic moron?

 

[rolfw]

Providing you have a good antivirus and a good firewall, they shouldn't cause too much damage, still wouldn't touch Kazzaa with a bargepole though.

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

to play kazaa and the likes, you will have to "port forwarding" on your firewall, giving kazaa unrestricted access to those ports, trojan specifically designed to exploit those "open" ports, therefore once you involve in file sharing via kazaa, you also vulnerable for all kind of cr*p. some kind of protection can be obtain by using one of those "out of date" pc, pentium 2 or pentium 3 pc, which have been decommisioned by some big corporates, get a cable/dsl sharer device, use the cheap pc to do kazaa only,.

 

[Old Satellite]

There are equally several programs widely availible that will access your PC through most firewalls irrespective of the current status of the firewall.

How would you believe remote access works when you call a helpdesk support facillity and they access your pc through your IP and and you do not need to change any settings on the firewall?

You are never has protected as you believe you might be, simple approach is to always back up at least every few days. so that when some not quite so nice Bastd-upsets your system - it only takes a few minutes to re-install.

Go to Yahoo and search "Kazaa virus" and you will see just how well known kazaa is for those items that you dont want to down load.

If you have a 14 year old crazy for Mp3 then you will now the work that you will have to do consistantly on thier pc's.

Install a nice restore facillity such a ghost / DVDRW drive etc


best regards

Old satellite

 

[kalamar]

Beware of Kazaa IF you MUST do such things,use WinMX altho you still can be attacked,just not as often ive noticed. Kazaa is hackers paradise !.
I download approximately 40-75 mp3's every week and use Agent newsreader ,it IS protected by firewalls and all virus programs PLUS you are not likely to get busted for stealing music,AND you are directly connected to the news server so downloads are positive and many times faster than P2P !
If you connect to a GOOD news server you will find plenty of mp3 files of every type.
It is very easy for the Backorfice program to sneak into your box when using a P2P type program.

 

[bigrandydavid]

i`m not actually using kazaa i was just curious.
i`ve used winmx when the need arises.

like i said though. wouldn`t a firewall tell you if something was trying to send information out of your pc?


@kalamar - i still have newsgroups at the top of my `things to understand` list.

 

[kalamar]

Not necessarly, but my virus scanner has poped up from time to time on P2P and quarantined the files . (AntiVir guard)

---------------------------------------------------------

Most hackers just want to play in your computer,just getting in gives them much satisfaction.There are a few that are viscious and want to destroy your computer.
! most are experts at programming and use Linux to hack with. They are completely familiar with ZoneAlarm and the AntiVirus programs, this is what turns them on,getting past your defenses !

so never feel that you are safe enough to not worry about hackers ! they even get into Micro$oft and the other biggies at times.

They are constantly trying to develope new virus and trojans ,so the only thing you can do is keep your defenses up-to-date and use them regularly.

You may also want to add a hardware firewall, most cheap routers have a built in firewall, I use a Belkin Wireless router for mine. available cheap on Ebay.

 

[bigrandydavid]

just on the topic of kazaa i uninstalled it yesterday, even though i only ever used it once and it kept popping a window up saying i couldn`t uninstall the program because it was running!? not sure exactly what it was doing.
i had to go into task manager to switch it off bfore i could get rid of it

 

[rolfw]

I think that the default option on it is to open at Startup and run in the background.

 

[BGonaSTICK]

I seem to spend rather a large part of my life fixing folks PC's which are riddled with stuff. ActiveX controls, malicious scripts, spyware, adware, popup programs, denial of service bots, you name it. Most of it is not actively trying to punch a large hole in your firewall to warn you of it's presence. Most of it comes in through ports that are already wide open.

Yes, most of these folks thought Kazaa was the best thing they ever installed.

Don't do it.

Newsgroups are good, but only if your ISP has good retention on its NNTP servers. If not, premium news subscription services can be a good investment. When you get more into it, IRC is a good way to go. Not for beginners though!

 

[bigrandydavid]

well what d`you know!!!!

i`ve found two trojans in two weeks on my system which im assuming are down to the fact i have winmx installed.
both were picked up by avg when i did a system scan and also by zonealarm when they tried to send info out.

so thats me done with shareware sites.
isn`t it funny how people always wait to get shafted themselves before they take the advice they were given right from the start