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Pain and agony!
Feb. 8th, 2007 03:54 pmDrat, drat, drat. On Monday, I was getting ready for my upcoming trip to LA. In the course of checking things, I happened to look at the USB sticks I carry around. One of them had been used back in September, when I put the ppt for the workshop on it, just in case. Somewhere during the workshop, someone asked me if they could have a copy of the ppt, and I handed them my prepared USB stick. They gave it back, and I stuck it in my bag.
Monday, without thinking about this history, I popped it in the laptop. Ah, there's my old file, and something else, and . . . what's this temp folder? I don't remember that? Click.
That's weird, It brought up a file explorer, but it doesn't seem to be the one on the USB stick.
Oh, well. Shut down the stick and forget about it.
By the next evening - after an all day meeting - when I started my system it was very slow. What's going on? Check the task manager, and something called lsass is taking up something like 70% of the CPU? Google lsass - eek, virus warnings, rontokbro, what the heck - and the system reboots by itself. It never does that. Google again, and reboot. Okay. Offline. Start Norton for a full disk scan, and soon know that I have been infected! Unclean, unclean. But at least Norton can fix it, right?
Not at the first swipe. So check the Symantec site, and learn that this is a bit more complicated. So we start through the sequence of no system restores, safe mode, scan - and wait, because doing almost anything triggers the reboot, which kills the scan. Then get a little bit cleaner. And try again. About three days shot, and I am now using a loaned system to do a little bit. I suspect I will not have a system until I get back, and buy another one. I am afraid that rontokbro has turned this one into an expensive piece of trash.
Very irritating. The good news is that I do have a full backup from Friday, which is still clean! But I am having to resurrect passwords and such right and left. And I suspect I have missed some bits and pieces.
AAArrrggghhh!
All for the curiosity of what's that folder?
No. The fault clearly lies with the originator of the virus. Blaming myself isn't positive.
Learning again what life without computers is like - now that's kind of interesting. Remembering handwriting, that's interesting. And figuring out how to reconstruct my online habits with the least amount of effort, and protect them against a recurrence, that's interesting.
But I sure wish I didn't have to do it!
Monday, without thinking about this history, I popped it in the laptop. Ah, there's my old file, and something else, and . . . what's this temp folder? I don't remember that? Click.
That's weird, It brought up a file explorer, but it doesn't seem to be the one on the USB stick.
Oh, well. Shut down the stick and forget about it.
By the next evening - after an all day meeting - when I started my system it was very slow. What's going on? Check the task manager, and something called lsass is taking up something like 70% of the CPU? Google lsass - eek, virus warnings, rontokbro, what the heck - and the system reboots by itself. It never does that. Google again, and reboot. Okay. Offline. Start Norton for a full disk scan, and soon know that I have been infected! Unclean, unclean. But at least Norton can fix it, right?
Not at the first swipe. So check the Symantec site, and learn that this is a bit more complicated. So we start through the sequence of no system restores, safe mode, scan - and wait, because doing almost anything triggers the reboot, which kills the scan. Then get a little bit cleaner. And try again. About three days shot, and I am now using a loaned system to do a little bit. I suspect I will not have a system until I get back, and buy another one. I am afraid that rontokbro has turned this one into an expensive piece of trash.
Very irritating. The good news is that I do have a full backup from Friday, which is still clean! But I am having to resurrect passwords and such right and left. And I suspect I have missed some bits and pieces.
AAArrrggghhh!
All for the curiosity of what's that folder?
No. The fault clearly lies with the originator of the virus. Blaming myself isn't positive.
Learning again what life without computers is like - now that's kind of interesting. Remembering handwriting, that's interesting. And figuring out how to reconstruct my online habits with the least amount of effort, and protect them against a recurrence, that's interesting.
But I sure wish I didn't have to do it!
