Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

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Hirozaki Takara
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Hirozaki Takara » Tue Jul 27, 2010 1:23 am

You can bind keyloggers to other EXE-files, but as far as I know, binding them to images would be impossible due to the exes being binary. Then again, I'm not a computer security expert!


There's a common trick, you give an .exe the standard icon of a JPG picture and add .jpg to the filename. Standardly configured Windows XP doesn't display known file extensions so the victim will see the file as 'picture.jpg', not 'picture.jpg.exe'. I assume it works in 60% of cases maximum as sometimes (as in case with the MSN which displays full filenames including the extensions) the victim will somehow see the real .exe extension and won't open the file. Still it sometimes works.

A real .jpg / .bmp / .png / whatever image is absolutely harmless, you can't infect it anyhow.

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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by MohameD » Tue Aug 03, 2010 6:08 pm

Thats Great,thank you man..really helped.

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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by jhonybush » Sat Aug 28, 2010 1:49 pm

It is a nice information given by you. It is very useful to me and for the other users also. And I suggest you to install the original Antivirus in to your computer because it is give the protection against the virus and also give the protection against the firewall. Thus you can keep your computer clean from the viruses.

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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Adam » Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:13 pm

jhonybush wrote:It is a nice information given by you. It is very useful to me and for the other users also. And I suggest you to install the original Antivirus in to your computer because it is give the protection against the virus and also give the protection against the firewall. Thus you can keep your computer clean from the viruses.

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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by MrSilent » Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:33 pm

I'm keeping my computer clean by using NOD32. Edited this part out.

-Do NOT speak about illegal ways to obtain licenses for programmes-

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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Kuxas » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:14 am

Yes, you are correct about routers. Routers do work as a firewall. Even with ports forwarded, they are still acting as a firewall on the other ports. There is no firewall better than a router. Routers mean that you can't be "picked off" as such - hackers can't just randomly find your IP and force your computer to download malicious software and whatnot.

However, if you go and download Desktop Sheep or something along those lines, you're asking for it ;)

Oh and paranoia isn't necessary. You don't need to fear every single file, just have some common sense about you. Image files, such as jpg, png, etc, cannot contain malicious code - it is simply not possible as they must be viewed with another program. That program isn't going to execute the malicious lines of code because it only recognises the format for that file format. It won't ignore the code, but it won't run it, as the software "doesn't know how", so to speak.

If it were possible, you'd get a billion and one viruses every time you searched something in Google Images.

It's the same for audio and video files.

The aforementioned method of disguising a binary as a jpg by simply renaming the format and changing the icon would not work as it would still attempt to open it in your default image viewing program (Photoshop, GIMP, or whatever). Atleast, thats what I'd assume. I'll try it out and see what happens (with a dummy exe, of course!).

EDIT Yes, I'm correct in my assumption that the way a file is run is determined by the extension alone. By renaming an exe to jpg, my operating system attempts to run that file through Photoshop, which will then simply give an error, and nothing will happen.

EDIT2 Although I just noticed that you actually meant that you put "jpg" as well as "exe", so it is ".jpg.exe". This is a stupid design choice made by the geniuses over at Microsoft to make the default setting such that recognised filetypes are hidden - perfect for malicious software to hide from the standard user. Security, my ass...

You have to manually go into the Explorer settings and disable this feature. I recommend that everyone does it.

Open My Documents (or any folder, really), go to Tools, Folder Options, View and then uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types". That's for Windows XP (I'm still using it!), but it shouldn't be too difficult to find on Windows 7 - it's almost certainly in a similar, if not the same, place.
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Adam » Wed Sep 22, 2010 9:24 pm

Kuxas wrote:EDIT Yes, I'm correct in my assumption that the way a file is run is determined by the extension alone. By renaming an exe to jpg, my operating system attempts to run that file through Photoshop, which will then simply give an error, and nothing will happen.

Out of curiousity, should there be a photoshop exploit (local), is it possible to have someone load it by sending them an image?
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Kuxas » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:24 pm

Adam wrote:Out of curiousity, should there be a photoshop exploit (local), is it possible to have someone load it by sending them an image?


I won't rule it out completely, but I highly doubt it.
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by jillyronald » Mon Sep 27, 2010 1:14 pm

This post is really nice, it help people to keep computer clean from viruses, I hope that people will really like. I can't thank you enough, because of it my computer is clean from virus and now it works best. It is very nice informative information for computer users.

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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Craxx » Mon Sep 27, 2010 1:29 pm

chrishan wrote:Great! Should be stickied!

Agreed.
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Adam » Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:09 pm

Craxx wrote:
chrishan wrote:Great! Should be stickied!

Agreed.

Despite the fact that this topic is already stickied, thank you.
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by DominicMcgoneli » Sun Oct 31, 2010 4:54 pm

Very nice guide!
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Jon » Sat Nov 06, 2010 2:52 pm

Common sense is your best friend, keeping away from things that were stated may keep you clean, but everything can be binded and crypted(adding binary code to prevent from protection programs to detect an ilegal activity) to your very daily downloads and it is very possible to bind some types of trojans, virouses into pictures the program costs hundreds of dollars though.
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by Adam » Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:17 am

Jon wrote:Common sense is your best friend, keeping away from things that were stated may keep you clean, but everything can be binded and crypted(adding binary code to prevent from protection programs to detect an ilegal activity) to your very daily downloads and it is very possible to bind some types of trojans, virouses into pictures the program costs hundreds of dollars though.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this impossible? I was at a forum where this matter was discussed a lot, and someone concluded that pictures aren't binary, thus it's not possible.
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Re: Keeping your computer clean from viruses.

Post by The Mastermind » Thu Dec 23, 2010 5:29 am

Adam wrote:You can bind keyloggers to other EXE-files, but as far as I know, binding them to images would be impossible due to the exes being binary. Then again, I'm not a computer security expert!



This is possible, I've done it before.
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