Freakin Computer Virus

B

boomtap

New member
Ok, so I posted a thread about cheap (free) plugins, and I found some, downloaded them, and smack...we have a computer down.

Note to self: never hook your recording pc to the net, and always download free plugs to a machine with good active virus protection, scan and clean those before uploading them to your good machine.

Bottom line...screwed. I get what I deserve. Lucky for me I was only 1 song into my 4 song project, and there is a possibility of re-covering the tracks for that song if I can get the Disk to jive with my other PC.
 
Never hook ANY computer to the internet!!

You could get a virus! :rolleyes: ;)




Seriously though- there is nothing wrong with hooking your recording puter to the internet if you know what you;re doing, and if your care full and run a decent a/v software.

I think BETTER advice would be to back up your important files (music or not) to an external drive REGULARLY- like at the end of any session. Virus' arent the only things that break computers. I've lost WAY more data to failed components than to viruses.

Hope you didnt lose too much bro. Good luck gettin it back. :o :)
/jeff
 
kremitmusic said:


Seriously though- there is nothing wrong with hooking your recording puter to the internet if you know what you;re doing, and if your care full and run a decent a/v software.
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Even more seriously, there is absolutely no need to chance it. Boomtap and tortise have it 100% right: if you do this for a living, keep your production machines off the 'net. Period.

The machine I am typing this on right now (not my main production machine) currently has literally over a HALF DOZEN levels of active net security on it, every one of them necessary (anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, spam blocker, system messaging blocking and two browser security redoubts.) When you know that the Internet is such a sewer that you need all that crap just to keep you clean (and even all that has still been known to fail), you have the evidence staring you in the face that the Internet is absolutely no place for your business gear to even touch, let alone commiserate with.

Web commerce is, of course, a different story. But that what transaction servers and designated browser terminals are for :).

If you need to share files with another studio via public internet, and ground mail is not an option due to scheduling, use an intermediary machine to send and receive (and do not connect your production machine to the the gateway machine). Even better is to set up (or join) a VPN.

And for ALL machines, STAY AWAY FROM WIRELESS.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
...if you do this for a living, keep your production machines off the 'net. Period.
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I'll agree with that.

I personally only use my recording machine to record my own band- not really a business- Its connected to the net through my router- along with a few other machines in the house- I havent had a problem because I'm carefull about where i go and what i down load. I back up my data. I use anti virus software. I run Adaware and Spybot regularly. I have a hardware firewall.

My point is, in the last 5 years I've lost zero data to viruses and a shit load of data to failed harddrives. Hence my reasoning for backing up being the MOST important thing you can do. Then again, I'm very much up to speed on my computer maintance- some are not, and are consequently very vulnerable.
YMMV
 
I got a virus in the last year. it sucked. but I came out of it clean. but it was a close call. My virus checker wanted to delete the infected files (windows components) which would have basically meant a re-format.

word of advice: clean the infection in safe mode. in safe mode, the checker could clean the files instead of erase them. = life saver.
 
I am building a second machine just to be my recording computer today. It will not be hooked to the net, and I am proud to say it will have removable bays for my tracks, so If something were to go wrong, I could format the os drive, and begin again.

Virus's suck.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
And for ALL machines, STAY AWAY FROM WIRELESS.

G.
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Why? I'm guessing that wireless security is pretty weak, which would open you up to drive-by hacking/cracking. Is there any other concern?
 
Well I have to have my recording computer able to hook up to the 'net - it's the only way I can get updates for my audio software.
 
MadAudio said:
Well I have to have my recording computer able to hook up to the 'net - it's the only way I can get updates for my audio software.
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Then you might want to consider removeable drive caddies.

-RD
 
Get NOD32. It is the best antivirus. Period.
I actually was reccomended it from a computer programmer for one of the big firms. Since I have used it, no problems. I have tested them all, even intentionally infected a computer to try out different AV programs. Norton went first. found 1. ate a up a lot of resources. Kapersky, found nothing. Mcafee found 3, ate up a lot of resources. AVG, found 1. AVAST, found 1. ANTIVIR, found NOTHING. Nod32 found 26!. (I ran em all back to back, it was a LONG day, but i am a geek)

as far as antispyware,,,,I run the following

microsoft beta
webroot spysweeper
and Ad aware, all programmed to start the deep scan an hour after the previous one finishes. computer has been solid as a rock for years.
 
yeah my comp is on the net more than I am recording, honestly. haha.

Of course, recording isn't my living - just my hobby and maybe i'll do a band or two every 2 weeks or so when I'm not at school. never seemed to have a problem though.

WHILE recording/mixing, a different hardware profile is loaded - no ethernet card activated in that profile...


no problems with the net thus far, plenty of problems with harddrives....
 
AV, antispyware, firewalls etc will all inflict a HUGE performance hit on your machine when active as will network services so there is no reason to have a production machine connected to any network
 
That is what I hate. You run those av programs, and they hit your machine so hard that it sucks. It is a lose lose situation.
 
A few thoughts about drive caddies;

Disk drives are cheap. So are the caddies.

The boat load of SW you need to buy to be truely be protected costs money.

If you're lucky enough to be hit first, a new virus can nail you before the new definition file is created to detect and block it.

I've never had to update the definition files for a removable drive caddy. ;)

Your audio OS and data drives stay more organized, less fragged, and devoid of extra layers of crap to slow down your system and eat drive space.

I now have a seperate computer for Audio work, optimized just for that. Before the second machine though, popping in different drives for audio and non-audio sessions (or audio related downloads) worked perfectly, and made the ultimate firewall. Unless they create a virus that employs quantum "spooky action at a distance", removeable drives seems to me to be the best answer for fool proof multi-use protection.

-RD
 
BigRay said:
Get NOD32. It is the best antivirus. Period.
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I installed the demo version of that program. It made my computer crash worse than any virus. When I scanned my registry I found over 200 errors caused by that bullshit program. They should rename it BSOD32.
 
altitude909 said:
AV, antispyware, firewalls etc will all inflict a HUGE performance hit on your machine when active as will network services so there is no reason to have a production machine connected to any network
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thats why when I record I disable networking and close all of that crap. its also a good idea to use msconfig to make sure crap doesn't load on startup.
 
I just finished re-formatting my drive and booted windows again for the first time. Just another several hours to get all the drivers ect... installed and I should be rolling again, this time without every touching the net.
 
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