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Showing posts from April, 2010

Computer Malware - How well did the System hold up?

I recently had the first virus infection on my home computer since the early nineties. It was a particularly nasty Java exploit called XP Internet Security 2010 . This seems to be quite a widespread thing, easily catchable, you just have to visit a web site that has various advertisements on it and according to some reports it has even infected the advertising on the US White Pages sites. So, I guess that what was interesting about this whole thing is how well the anti-virus and anti-malware systems held up. McAfee I used to say that McAfee protects my system but now I'll just have to say that it's resident on my system - at least until it expires. Then again, since it was about as useful as an umbrella on a battlefield, it might not even last that long. McAfee's firewall and Anti-virus didn't even pop up a speech bubble during the entire infection episode. Talk about pointless software - All it seems to do is slow the system down with pathetic real-time scans. Sym