This all started about a year ago. I had been using Norton to protect my PC for the longest time. I upgraded every year for a few years until last year from using their 2007 edition software that just bogged the hell out of my machine. I let the software expire and a few days later I bought Kaspersky.

Well right after the software expired, it initially told me that my subscription needed to be renewed and it had detected a Trojan virus on my machine. This made me think about something a friend told me... "if you don't want viruses, buy firewall hardware, use common sense with internet and e-mail, and don't install antivirus software."

Well I went ahead and purchased Kaspersky which told me I had not only that Trojan virus, but a couple other viruses as well. Cleaned them all out with the install and used the software until this past weekend.....

I decided to reformat my machine to clean out the cobwebs and enjoy that nice clean feeling you get with a fresh install of an OS. To avoid any issues before I downloaded and updated the latest patches and service packs of XP, I went ahead an installed Kaspersky before ever getting onto the internet. As soon as the program finished installing, WHAM, it found four viruses on my machine!

WTF!?! This is a fresh install of Windows! WTF are you talking about Kas-fucking-persky!?! BULL SHIT!

Now I always heard of the "idea" of antivirus people writing their own viruses, and now I'm a true believer. I will never plop that slop on my box ever again. I'm sure that not having an antivirus suite may work for single users, but not really in a larger environment, but ahhhhhhh, the ridiculousness of it all. I can see why they would write their own viruses too. You're not going to buy the software unless you think you have a virus, and if you really didn't have one, then by them installing some on there for you gives the end user the justification they needed for purchasing it. It also justifies a switch to a different company if the virus picked up by Kaspersky wasn't picked up by McAfee for instance.

Kinda like doctors injecting you with the flu virus.

Sounds like false positive.

Did you remember which trojans it reported by any chance? It would be interesting to google the names and see if other reports of false positives pop up.

A little googling turned up this:

According to the Moscow-based security outfit, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0, Kaspersky Internet
Security 6.0, Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0 have all been affected by the erroneous signature update. As a direct consequence, Kaspersky started emitting false positives and labeling Windows Explorer in both Windows Vista and Windows XP as infected with Worm.Win32.Huhk.c. In this context, the antivirus either quarantined or completely deleted the Explorer core component of the Windows operating system.

So my question would be: did you update your virus definitions to the latest before scanning? Or did you scan with whatever default definitions it shipped with?

Yea, I haven't used a virus protection prog in ages... seems pointless. I get just as many viruses without protection as I did with it.

My 2 cents

Kapersky gives false positive, no big deal.
As for running without antivirus there is no way I would do that.
it now takes more than common sense to avoid virus's. Some will attack without any action on your part. They are designed to install without your knowlege through,RPC, TFTP, network shares and even flash drives .
You weren't riding the short bus, but your friend that said "if you don't want viruses, buy firewall hardware, use common sense with internet and e-mail, and don't install antivirus software." is saving a seat on it for you.

BTW this is backed up by 10 mind numbing years of doing tech support.

glib: nah i didn't take note of which ones it found... I didn't update to those latest patches either... the program launched immediately after install... so this could explain what was happening... i know it was more than just one virus though because it gave me that God awful sound from hell when it finds a virus or worm or grandmother hacking into your system.... but still... with the Norton finding a virus immediately after the subscription expired, and then this happening... i dunno if i am sold on the false positive, but i will look into it.

Originally Posted by TechSmith

My 2 cents

Kapersky gives false positive, no big deal.
As for running without antivirus there is no way I would do that.
it now takes more than common sense to avoid virus's. Some will attack without any action on your part. They are designed to install without your knowlege through,RPC, TFTP, network shares and even flash drives .
You weren't riding the short bus, but your friend that said "if you don't want viruses, buy firewall hardware, use common sense with internet and e-mail, and don't install antivirus software." is saving a seat on it for you.

BTW this is backed up by 10 mind numbing years of doing tech support.

i hear ya man.... i'm gonna look into this false positive thing the glib pointed out.... it was just one of those things that kinda weirded/bugged me out and sealed the deal in my mind.... i'm glad i brought it up to you guys... always far more knowledgeable than i... here, here!

"Plop that slop on my box" - what an image. With a rubber spatula, I presume.

I'm running AVG Free and I was going to say I've been clean for a while only to end up getting a random fucking alert tonight, followed by another error a few hours later that is apparently another virus...

Now I'm using Spybot and another malware program to double check things which is pretty fucking tedious.

I do wonder how dubious the majority of these seemingly minor things are as its so much hassle to clean it all up only to remain a little bit paranoid as to whether or not youre in the clear. Ah well, guess i'll stop clicking every link in IRC for the time being :E

Originally Posted by aesir

Yea, I haven't used a virus protection prog in ages... seems pointless. I get just as many viruses without protection as I did with it.

I agree. Your best protection is that left mouse button. Be careful what you click and you can go years between infections with or without an AV program.

Or just dont use Windows...

You could also have had a rootkit installed it would be there after you format.

Originally Posted by Dekard

You could also have had a rootkit installed it would be there after you format.

That was my thought. Some viruses install to your bootsector or other bits that don't get wiped.

Vrav: yes, the rubber spatula is 3rd from the left on my utility belt.

Dekard, Tumerboy: I honestly had not thought of that as being a possibility. I'll remember that next time I do a clean install of an OS. Is there a way to make sure that doesn't happen when you format? I've heard of programs that obliterate everything, but have never fully investigated.

Well last night I went and reinstalled the program. After it installed it tried to autorun a scan again, which I stopped immediately and downloaded the latest patches and definitions before letting it continue per Glib. Once all that was said and done, it didn't find anything from a full scan, so it had to be that false positive mentioned before.

Thanks for all the input, advice, and reeling me back into reality! My brain always has deadly subatomic reactions that result in ridiculous word vomit when dog slop like this goes down.

ya, I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather my AV software had false positives once in a while, than miss something that is an actual threat.

I've never had a virus on my machine before... spyware yes, but it's all from my own stupidity when I clicked something that shouldn't have been clicked.

I just use it as an excuse to restore the partition image/reinstall... takes about 20 minutes the way I have it set up... faster than any spyware or virus scan... and even faster than trying to fix the damage done by that crap if you can fix it at all.

Kaspersky, eh? Sounds Russian.

I've used AVG Free for many years without any trouble. But that's possibly from my carefulness in clicking. I don't bother with software firewalls, as long as I'm using a router. About once a month I run Spybot, to be safe. As often, I run CCleaner to clean the system of the usual Windows junk that slows it down over time. I keep Winpatrol running, but it can get annoying. Considering uninstalling it. With all this, I keep a nice, clean, smoothly running, virus free system.

I have no realtime protections running on my home computer... if I have a feeling something is wrong I will install one, run it and then uninstall it again... that realtime crap slows down a machine more than windows garbage.

select internet - delete

i've had kaspersky since start of the year - no probs so far, actually got rid of some virus/trojan that stopped avg or any othere software from removing itself.....

Firebert - oh by the way, the only way you'll be totally virus/trojan free is to STOP LOOKING UP PORN ON THE INTERWEBS!

Kaspersky is one of the best antivirus packages out there. It's most likely false positives, since most BIOSes have stuff to stop things from writing to the boot sector.