Ultimately a keylogger will usually target a site (e.g., PayPal).

So I might somehow infect you with my keylogger by saying, "Hey incredible_vegetable, download this cool game and try it out."

You, being a dumb shit, say "Sweet, a cool game." and run my dodgy exe. Nothing happens. You think, "Oh, it must be broken. Oh well."

Meanwhile you just installed my keylogger.

Now my keylogger hook some Windows API functions like getWindowText() or whatever, and the keyboard interface. If I detect 'PayPal' in the heading of a browser window the keylogger starts recording keys.

You start pushing keys (entering username, password). My keylogger say records for 2min, and then uploads data to external server which I have access to.

Where it all breaks down is what I now do with the data. Some people have got away with taking very small money of a lot of people. It's very difficult not to get caught by taking a large sum off one person.

In this day and age you can expect to get fucked for it anyway.

I have been using AVG for years but uninstalled it from my laptop like 6 months back - can't remember why. I haven't bothered installing it. I'm really careful with what I download and what I install so I don't really feel like I even need to bother with antivirus protection any more.

One change I _should_ make is stop running as an Administrator user but I suspect I'd quickly get annoyed with that because of how many shitty Windows apps need you to be administrator before you can install.

One change I _should_ make is stop running as an Administrator user but I suspect I'd quickly get annoyed with that because of how many shitty Windows apps need you to be administrator before you can install.

This is something that Vista is trying to overcome, and I actually feel safer running Vista as I'm finally able to productively work without permanent SU status. A few times apps have requested admin powers and I've told them to fuck off, something I wouldn't have been aware of under XP as I couldn't be stuffed running under a non-admin login for reasons you note above.

For its failings (real or not) the changes to the architecture to promte seperation of user and administration contexts can only be a good thing in the long run.

last edited by Hogfather at 10:22:00 08/Dec/08

While we're on the subject of security, how's the new Firefox thingy that stops you going to dodgy sites? I've found that if I ever see that red screen I just fuck the site off since it's not something I want to risk.

i find avg a shocker for needing restarts after updates;

pretty much every update i do, needs a restart;

same as above... avg shat me off with it's constant updating & rebooting... worse than most virii i've had ;p i recently reloaded os's on all my home computers & put avast! (free home version) on them all & once parabol had shown me how to make false alarm exceptions it's all been good so far.

although i gotta say i find the american voice wavs for alerts a bit annoying... specially if i forget to turn my speakers off n there is an update in the middle of the night & i hear this 'virus database has been updated!' inna cheesy yank voice from the other room :p

Avast gave me the shits because it would update at random times, usually when I least wanted it to like in the middle of an online game.

AVG updates when I switch on and doesn't bother me again. It's a little resource intensive when scanning but so was Avast. I went for about 3 months without an AV scanner of any kind but found I was getting uber paranoid and kept using an online scanner and running spybot. Never got any viruses or spyware in that time but I reinstalled AVG just for peace of mind.

"Your virus database has been updated"

"Your virus database has been updated"

Best is when you leave your speakers on by accident and hear this at midnight when you're in bed (ok, so I go to bed early, what of it?).

I got that Red screen of death for visiting MSY's website for a day.

I use AVG, it hasn't found a virus in Years. It seems I know how to use the interwebs,

The problem I have with anti-virus software is that it's a pain in the arse, doing all it's updates and carry on. Also what shits me is running firewalls and you can't connect the Xbox or something. Almost every problem I have ever had with networking my Xbox has eventually been traced to Windows firewall being a massive gaylord.

I haven't any protection for years and I've never had any major issues. Could have been viruses but if there were they did virtually nothing to my system to warrant racing out and getting protection. In fact the "virus protection" progs that I dabbled with were more annoying and usually got uninstalled after about 1 week of shit popping up and blocking everything under the sun. I know you do exceptions and all that but they don't always work and it all ends up rather gay.

As for data, I back up pretty much everything important so it's no big deal. One thing I am concerned about is keyloggers and shit that can steal your loot. How do these work and what should I be looking for/doing about them (if anything)?

Having said all that I just installed Avast free home ed the other day and it's ok I guess. Nice to know you have something there. When I ran it for the first time it picked up a couple of things but I quarantined them and deleted without raising a sweat.

Im surprised the amount of gamers here that do not run anti-virus, I thought if anything people familiar and fairly good with tech would run an antivirus.

Its the opposite. Because a lot of gamers are highly computer literate, they know that antivirus software is useless if you watch what you download.

They're designed from the start for non-computer literal people. I wish all OS had built in antivirus scanners, that's how it really should be.

This is something that Vista is trying to overcome, and I actually feel safer running Vista as I'm finally able to productively work without permanent SU status. A few times apps have requested admin powers and I've told them to fuck off, something I wouldn't have been aware of under XP as I couldn't be stuffed running under a non-admin login for reasons you note above.

I thought UAC was pretty neat when I first got my laptop but after a bunch of times waiting for something to install only to come back and find the UAC prompt there minimized to the tray or hidden behind another window because for some reason it didn't pop up and come to the front I turned that annoying bullshit off.

Its the opposite. Because a lot of gamers are highly computer literate, they know that antivirus software is useless if you watch what you download.

Gamers are usually a bunch of dirty juarez monkehs anyway so getting computer aids is inevitable.

i have used heaps of virus checkers over time, but the best by far was AVG free

so great that I decided to pay a 2 year subscription, so far not a single virus/keylogger/trojan or spyware has made it through

the newest version is very sleek, and fast, no annoying popups and NO rebooting (unless they do a major update which is like once every 6months).

works fine with media streaming to xbox, hamachii online LAN games etc..

Trog shift + right click -> run as admin...

yeh he knows how to use runas, a lot of software still has issues though

I've got legit versions of AVG on both my machines and it seems to work great. Not sure what the deal is with people getting restarts after updating but mine never needs to.

Virii is not the correct plural of virus, unless you actually meant "software composed of computer viruses, trojans, and worms".

I've never had a virus, but I do run AVG free that does a scheduled scan at 12am just in case. But, I think the best way to avoid a virus is to avoid sites that would have them. A little common sense can go a long way.
Spyware on the other hand..

Hmm yeah so if you are using a firewall where you have to approve every connection, it should be pretty easy to stop it when it attempts to send the data if you know what you're doing?