Comments on: Symantec Issues Additional Trojan.Peacomm Alert – Rapidly Growing Threat

By: dj69man

dj69man — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:27:51 +0000

As usual, I heard about it here first. The news about this is all over the web now. Even CNN was running a story for it.

By: Thor Schrock

Thor Schrock — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:33:34 +0000

Windows Defender is ok, but I don’t believe it is necessary. I do not run it on my notebook, if that tells you anything.

By: Mary Fischer

Mary Fischer — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:30:55 +0000

Thanks for your quick reply! If you don’t mind one more question, what is Windows Defender, and do I need it since I have Norton Anti-Virus?

By: Bill Tones

Bill Tones — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:26:56 +0000

I had the same problem Mary does and Thor’s fix worked for me. It is such a simple thing that you would think they could take care of that with an update or something.

By: Thor Schrock

Thor Schrock — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:34:26 +0000

The problem is that you have an outdated version of Windows Defender installed on your computer. If you left click on Start, then click on Control Panels and then double click on Add/Remove programs you can remove Windows Defender entirely. When you are done, restart your computer.

If you want to have Windows Defender protecting your computer, you can download the latest free version at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyId=435BFCE7-DA2B-4A6A-AFA4-F7F14E605A0D

By: Mary Fischer

Mary Fischer — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 04:11:57 +0000

When I boot up my computer (which I purchased from Schrock Innovations in April 2006), I get the dialog box that there is a problem with Windows Defender. This just started about a month ago. I always close this dialog box by clicking on the X in the upper right-hand corner, and don’t click “OK” because I don’t know what Windows Defender Service is, and my computer seems to work fine if I just close out the dialog box and ignore it.

My computer is an AMD-nVIDIA, with 512 MB hard drive, 2 Gb of memory, , 56K internal modem (Gateway, from my old computer), running Windows XP Home Edition. My ISP is AOL.

What does this dialog box mean?

By: Josh the Aspie

Josh the Aspie — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:44:38 +0000

Right, but you recommend installing both, and Firefox has nothing to do with this -particular- threat by the provided description.

By: Thor Schrock

Thor Schrock — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:06:54 +0000

The main difference is that FireFox is a 2 minute installation on a high speed connection, whereas the Google Pack is a 25 minute installation on a high speed connection. So if you just need FireFox, it is much faster to install only FireFox rather than the all encompassing Google Pack.

By: Josh the Aspie

Josh the Aspie — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 16:56:08 +0000

Okay, I completely support people using firefox more often (as I have previously said, Best. Browser. EVER. To date at least). However I’m curious as to why you recommend installing Firefox -then- installing the Google pack. You can get Firefox and the Google tool bar as a part of the Google Pack, and it’s customizable so if you choose, you can install Firefox and nothing else.

Throw in Adobe Reader, and sometimes Pascal, and you’ve got my typical install of the pack.

The tip about the free Norton is a good one, and I’ve been having some trouble with getting my Norton up and running after reinstalling my OS, so I may take advantage of the free 6 months on some of my systems.

But since the vulnerability for this infection is based in e-mail rather than browsing, and the problem is with virus scanners not detecting it when incoming as a zip, why not just recommend the Google Pack as a way to get updated virus definitions?

By: Thor Schrock

Thor Schrock — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:25:56 +0000

@ Mike.. Schrock Innovations only send alerts on viruses that are REALLY bad. Schrock was sending so much email that we started to have ISPs call us and ask us what we were up to.

On top of that, email services like MSN, AOL, and Yahoo started filtering our normal business communication emails as junk. The whole mess created so much confusion that we are developing a new delivery method for the Virus Alerts.

The new method will still be free and it will cover Virus Alerts, Spyware Alerts, as well as Severe Weather alerts and more. It will be integrated into desktop alert software that will monitor a feed on a blog. This way subscribers to the free service get up-to-date alerts directly from our web server.

This should reduce email clutter, eliminate communication problems, and will offer some neat new options like getting a text message on your phone (if you want one) when there is severe weather or a critical security alert.

If all goes well (which it rarely does) we should have this new system in place in a couple months.