trojans and Ubuntu

[Willis Taylor]

Tim M wrote:
> On Jan 18, 2008 2:36 PM, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>
>   
>> Tim M wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> Yesterday a friend of mine asked me about identity thief protection
>>>       
>> sites
>>     
>>> and she sent me a link to one asking if it was okay. I clicked on the
>>>       
>> link
>>     
>>> on my laptop running 10.7 (also protected with NoScript). Anyway this
>>> morning I was talking to my boss he is in charge of Internet security
>>>       
>> for
>>     
>>> a major company (I work for him part time in his own business). He said
>>> that if she clicked on that site she could have introduced a Trojan into
>>> her computer. I will not post the site address here . . . anyway, he
>>>       
>> might
>>     
>>> have misunderstood me or I might have misunderstood him. Now I need to
>>> tell my friend, who suffers from panic attacks) to reinstall her system.
>>>       
>> I
>>     
>>> guess I should listen to my boss . . . I am wondering what the group
>>> thinks about what he said and that if my system might be compromised
>>>       
>> also.
>>
>> Yours, no.  Hers?  Perhaps.  Clicking on a link can only rarely introduce
>> a
>> trojan, even under Windows.  These days, under Vista, it's practically
>> impossible to click on _anything_ without getting that annoying popup
>> asking if it should be allowed.  Identity theft links almost invariably
>> rely on you actively giving them information - they don't need to write
>> programs for it.  A friend's computer-savvy and highly-educated wife fell
>> for one of the "your account has been suspended..." scams.
>> --
>> derek
>>
>> <https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users>
>>     
>
> Thank you Derek, Some said this post might not be appropriate for this
> forum. I am sorry if my posting it is out of line but I was interested in
> whether the affect might be on my machine also. I do agree with you too that
> my boss might have been overstating the problem . . . she does have
> anti-virus and other protection offered by her IP.  But like you said people
> going to such a site are going to WILLINGLY give them all the information
> they would EVER need.
>
> Tim
>
>   
Tim,
  I support about 30 WindowsXP machines in my church family and 
friends.  If she is running XP your boss was right on target.  Please 
follow the advise I gave you about going to housecall,trendmicro and 
find out before it is to late.  I just had to clean three units that 
were networked because one of them stumbled into a site and did not 
worry because they routinely do the scans and were running the ISP 
provided anti-virus.  With Windows it is much better to be safe than 
sorry.  And if you reinstall the backed up file go back to housecall and 
run the scan once more.  If it is infected this time the Trojan has 
infected the work files and you'll need to clean it once more and she 
will need to leave the backed up files off.