Internet Withdrawal Symptoms

My network got hit by a virus called Pinfi. It's classified as a low risk virus, although it is nowhere near 'low impact'.

The thing about viruses is that most people don't care about it until it hits them. They put too much trust in themselves, in the people they work with and even in their support organisation, as it's always someone else's job.

I felt the same way, until my notebook got hit with Nimda last year when I forgot that I had enabled IIS to run NetIQ's demo software. I didn't even think I need a personal firewall back then!

The agony, frustration and effort was enough to turn me around. I now understand my machines better than I understand my own health. The hum, the response times to my mouse clicks, the programs that should be running, and how 'heavy' something should be are all observed and catalogued, forming a snapshot of how my machines should be performing. At the slightest change, I quickly run task manager and netstat (ok, limited methodology here, based on crisis alleviated previously...). And I have become vigilant about personal firewalls, password protection, that padlock at the bottom of my browser and my own behaviour - where I log in from and what I do on other people's machines.

I don't want to sound smug - considering that I couldn't even log in to 'local' on my workstation all morning - but while everyone else is still running around with tens and hundreds of infected files, my anti-virus scan showed up clean. (OK, so the PC is relatively 'new' but still...). My only problem, apparently, was that as the infected server was being cleaned up, the sysadmins blocked all logins. Once I managed to get in (it pays to be persistent... and patient), it was smooth sailing all the way.

Posted by Najah Nasseri at 2003年05月09日 13:51