virus/antivirus software

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Hi all
I was alerted by my friend yesterday that she was sent a prog called msn blocker through msn by "me" and i wasnt even using my msn at the time so im assuming that this was done by a virus.
I did a full system scan which turned up two instances of malware which i moved to the chest and that was it.
Would malware do this or is there something else my antivirus isnt picking up?
My antivirus is Avast, the free version from the Avast website which i thought was sufficent until this incident, does anyone have any views on Avast? do you think it gives enough protection?

Kev

 

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Avast anti virus software is good and gets the job done of blocking and eradicating viruses. Hope this helps

 

I'm not familiar with MSN, but spoofing the source of messages is common elsewhere, so might have happened here. Or it could have been the items you found.

Look up the items you found to see if they are prone to doing this sort of thing.

Harry.

 

Obviously, it didn't block and eradicate this one.

 

I've seen this before...and it's probably nothing to do with your antivirus. I'm afraid to say that your friend is probably the one with the infection on his/her computer.

They have said infection which has affected their computer/msn installation. This changes the way it works and uses their contact list to make it look like one of their friends (i.e. you) is sending them 'useful' software.

Only... it's not. It's most probably another virus/trojan/whatever.

I've had avast! free for years and I've never had any problems with it. My advice to you would be to get your friend to install (and keep updated) an antivirus program such as avast (download link is here) and an anti-malware solution (you should probably get this too ) (download link is here).

You can't be too careful. Be extremely cautious when accepting files over msn even if they're from someone you know, and especially if they're called things like "msn blocker". Get avast to auto-scan said files before opening them too!

Hope this advice helps

Qs

 

Anti virus software once they are updated regularly would get the job done and more over the issue here seems to be a malware issue and not a virus

 

thanks for all the replies it would make more sense that the virus is on her pc rather than mine as im quite obsessive about making sure everything like antivirus etc is always up to date and i do have anti malware too althugh it seems a couple of them have slipped through!

I was a bit worried that i had a virus and it had sent this "msn blocker" to everyone on my contacts list but as nobody else has contacted me to give me abuse then it makes sense that it is not on my system.

Thanks again.

 

Happy to help.

Qs

 

Er... viruses ARE malware. Malware includes viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, adware, keyloggers, and rootkits.

In all my years in IT, I have yet to see an anti-malware app catch everything. Plus, they're often pretty good at catching viruses and other malware, but horrible at cleaning them up. Thus, the fact that he's using Avast and being infected with malware doesn't surprise me; it happens.

 

Thanks for the heads up am still learning and willing to learn more too.

 

Wikipedia article if you're interested. - Link

BosonMichael is correct though Use a couple of anti-spyware/malware etc apps as well as a fully up-to-date antivirus to be sure.

If not - reformat it