Forums General Discussion viruses

its me again, the regular schmoe looking for some info.okay here goes: which viruses, if any, are spread thru mirc and what measures can take to prevent infection?

There are quite a few viruses/trojans that use mIRC I believe, lots of them having the same affect as other ones. 'Trojans' allow people to access your computer (which is what people have when you hear about disk drives opening and their computers being shut down etc).

For help with prevention it's a good idea to read http://www.mirc.co.uk/help/virus.html and the very good Trojan resources help thread which is a big index of all kinds of antiviruses and trojan cleaners etc etc.

Use Symantec's Search feature and search for 'mIRC' - it turns up a few results related to mIRC viruses etc.

It's a good idea to:

- NEVER accept files from people on IRC. Only accept files from trusted friends, 'trusted' meaning you've known them for months if not years, not because they've been nice to you for a few hours.

- NEVER go to URLs (website addresses) which are advertised to you on IRC. This includes "Free" pornography, free pictures of Britney Spears in the nude, pictures of people etc.

- NEVER type suspicious things that people tell you to type, especially if they contain //write $decode or any other long form of what appears to be a jumble of letters and numbers.

- ALWAYS have an antivirus installed on your computer. If they have auto-protect features (out of the above list I know AVG does) then have it enabled.

- ALWAYS have the latest updates from www.windowsupdate.com.

- ALWAYS have the latest version of your software. mIRC is an important one to have updated to avoid any exploits that may be found. You can always get the most up to date version at www.mirc.com/get.html.

Happy chattin' & stay safe!

Regards,

or just get a decent (non-Windows) OS. But since that's a bit hard, just do what Mentality told you to do

Why's it hard to get a non-Windows OS?

He probably means it's hard to convert from one OS to another in terms of getting new software and converting filetypes, etc. etc..

Not that changing OS from Windows necessarily has any bearing on computer security. Newer versions of Windows can be just as secure and stable as any UNIX variant provided you know what you're doing, the difference being that Windows is a little less punishing when you don't know what you're doing.

cebumedbiker: I'll just point out that the viruses that 'spread through IRC' aren't actually a result of IRC, they're mostly caused by users clicking URLs that then exploit vulnerabilities in certain web browsers (typically Internet Explorer). One of the most important things you can do to protect yourself against infections (besides the things that Mentality already mentioned) is to use a browser that isn't extremely insecure.