Fear the Worm

Friggin' computer viruses and internet worms. I hate them. And then I hate it that I also find them fascinating. But they're mostly fascinating when they affect other people's computers and not mine.

This weekend my home computer was eaten up by the newest worm, the W32 Sasser Worm. Bastard!

I turned on my computer to find an odd error message warning me that my computer's virtual memory was low. Odd, I thought, considering we just got this computer back in December -- so it's not very old.

I tried to sign on to the internet (yes, I use dial-up, call me lame but I really don't do enough online to warrant $50/month on DSL or cable broadband), but the computer was moving incredibly slowly. It was excruciating. So I knew something was up, something was wrong. My brief time as a systems administrator was about to come in handy again on the ol' home computer.

When I finally got the computer to sign on, I couldn't open any webpages. So I called my computer guru dad, and he said, "Sounds like you might have a worm."

Friggin' worms. So he helped me do some research (he would look up things on the internet since I couldn't get access), and we figured out that I had the new bug. What the W32 Sasser does, if you don't feel like wading through the minor techno-speak on Symantec, is chew up memory on your computer, thereby slowing down everything else you try to do.

With some more research, we discovered the wonders of Stinger. Stinger will search your entire computer for all viruses and worms, and delete anything it finds.

So my dad forwarded me a link to download Stinger, and I just had to figure out how to get online. So I used my brain and opened up the task bar and went to the processes section -- where I found several little bugs that were sucking up HUGE amounts of CPU usage. The main culprit was "avserve.exe," which is the main part of the worm. It was using up about 85% of the CPU on its own, but some of its underlings were using up the rest so our computer's CPU was almost 99% running. Friggin' worms.

I was able to end those processes, which instantly sped up and the computer and enabled me to get online and download Stinger. So the worm is gone now, and I'm currently perusing firewall and antivirus options for our computer. If anybody out there has any advice on good ones, please pass it on. I was looking at buying McAfee's Internet Security Suite or Norton's comparable package, but I read some reviews of those products on Amazon and man, people were ripping them. I have used Zone Alarm's free firewall in the past (on my old laptop that was stolen), and it worked great, so I'm considering one of their packages as well. One of the reviews also mentioned that if you only use dial-up, then Zone Alarm's free firewall, partnered with Norton's or McAfee's antivirus software, could be a good mix to prevent us from having problems like this in the future.

It would also help if Microsoft would suck less and stop releasing operating systems full of security holes and flaws, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Anyway, that's the plan now. I enjoy being a bit of a computer nerd, but I still hate those friggin' worms.

And beware to any of you out there with home computers that lack protection. I read a quote on MSNBC today saying that you could be online for a mere ten minutes and get infected with this thing. Crazy!

Worms are not passed around like viruses, you don't get them from downloading attachments or anything. They exploit unused ports on your computer without your knowing. You won't know you've got you til it starts making your computer go nuts. So beware, get a firewall!

Novice computer nerds unite!