I'm honestly convinced that every single "virus" I ever encountered was my "antivirus" trying to convince me to upgrade to their premium plan.

@fofopads4450

Жыл бұрын

as a former Avast tech support contractor, I witnessed this marketing shift from offering preventable security, to scareware tactics. I felt bad when their sales transferred a poor old lady who paid almost 200 dollars for a computer cleanup because she had some toolbars and was led to believe her PC was seriously compromised. Avast total support was a scam and it took me 2 years to realize and move away from it.

@DR---

Жыл бұрын

I think most data leaks in company's are not the result of hackers but the company itself illegally selling your data and pretending they were hacked to protect themselves from the law.

@LuizCarlos-my1wr

Жыл бұрын

Or a game cracker

@Worthy_Edge

Жыл бұрын

I can’t believe you would download an antivirus when windows defender is good enough and doesn’t destroy your performance

@exploshaun

Жыл бұрын

@@Worthy_Edge they all came pre downloaded from the shop. Also that was 10-15 years ago.

I've been working in IT just over 9 years now. One thing I've noticed on several occasions, is that 9 years ago viruses were much more plentiful. Back on windows 7 we would often hear about end users getting their machine infected and we'd have to resolve. It never happens anymore, at least for me. The main way we get attacked now is ungodly amounts of phishing

@okamijubei

Жыл бұрын

Yeah but something tells me the viruses didn't go extinct. They likely go dormant or put in storage containers.... Likely ready to be used wherever there's a war going to happen.

@TimeSurfer206

Жыл бұрын

It was a change of focus among the hackerzoids. Rather than simply do random damage, they're trying to make munneh.

@Nope-en9bo

Жыл бұрын

​@@TimeSurfer206 Went from >Targetting large random population To >Targetting high key personels and corpos for easy bucks Most of the time when your infos compromised, its usually a collateral. Your useless info will be thrown away by hackers cause its useless as fuck. Its the companies that gather your search algorithms that ironically uses your info more.

@jesusofbullets

Жыл бұрын

The weakest link in the chain of computer security is the human behind the screen.

@kenosabi

Жыл бұрын

​@@TimeSurfer206 and they making a lot of it 😂

As someone who works in a computing repair store, it seems that the biggest threat nowadays to the average computer user is phishing and scams. I see so many people getting tricked by phishing emails or fake websites and letting scammers have access to their computers. It’s something that the technically inclined people out there never even think about or realize, but it’s a HUGE problem and it makes me sad how common it is and how many people fall for it and end up losing thousands of dollars.

@howardmueller1535

6 ай бұрын

People fall for that shit? Jeez 🤦🏽‍♂️

@christopherrosales4351

6 ай бұрын

Surviving of the fitest they call it, though I'm sad for the old people getting scammed

@clintonsavage4018

6 ай бұрын

I work for an ISP, and I've definitely ran into an uptick on calls about ransomware recently. It's definitely mostly older people, and even with that uptick, it's still a very small minority.

@paxxino

6 ай бұрын

@@howardmueller1535 I work in healthcare and yeah, unfortunately people still fall for it--mainly elderly and people with intellectual disabilities. I actually just had an individual fall for a scam, but thankfully he didn't have direct access to any debit cards because his guardian manages it for him, otherwise he would have sent money to a scammer for a package he never would have received because he believed that person was being geniune (it was right before Christmas when this happened).

@fritzschnitzmueller3768

6 ай бұрын

Yea its not even everyday user. These phising mails are good. I work as a sw engineer in the medical device industry. One day I got a mail from my manager, stating he had finished my performance review and I shall have a look at it so we can discuss it in the next meeting. The sender was the name of my manager as usual. I click on the link and it turns out it was a huge phisihing bait from the IT department of my company. I "failed" the test and got send a training for cyber security/phising lmao. However, I never thought I get tricked with something like this. I work with computers since Im 11 years old, have a masters in computer science and do programming stuff everyday. But there they got me. Wouldnt have expected such an elobarte fish, especially since it was performance review time and the mail did fit perfectly. So always be aware. Its not only older people. Everyone can be affected by phising and being overconfident can be your (at least it was mine) grave :)

I remember being like 9 or 10 and getting a "FBI virus" on my computer. Said the police would show up at my house in 24 hours if I didn't pay them, locked my computer, AND took a screenshot of my face. The way I cried to my parents. Geek Squad was really helpful

@ncard00

6 ай бұрын

Feel like it's all just false emails now, that too many people trust and get cheated by. Why all major mail services and software should use AI to automatically delete ll the false emails, no move them to junk, delete them, and just like with hackers, if somebody manages to get past the AI, it needs more training, and so on forever.

@mukzz3381

6 ай бұрын

Bro same😂😂 I tried to download GTA san Andreas for free and that message popped up saying I was watching underaged shit and police will arrive in two days. I nearly jumped of a bridge.

@7Namjoon

6 ай бұрын

@@mukzz3381 nooo literally same. My aunt was like...whatever you've been watching you gotta stop. Lady I'm 9 just trying to download the sims 3 packs and IMVU for free

@decro3177

4 ай бұрын

I won a cruise once. What I really won was a busted PC.

I write old-fashioned and often harmless viruses for fun and distribute them to my friends (at least those who know how to use virtual machines), but one of my friends who was overly confident in the antivirus software he uses decided that my "homemade" virus can't get past its protection anyway, so he ran it without a virtual machine. In short, his computer got infected and it took me a week to write the program that repairs the damage caused by the virus I wrote in 2 hours. So yeah antivirus softwares are good and all but the best protection is common sense.

@jmtradbr

Жыл бұрын

The best i did was shutdown bat files in the MSN times

@iam_joshua_bcxvii

Жыл бұрын

@@jmtradbr Same, I did that to one of our lab computers in IT. When one of my classmates used it for demo to fix a computer, he was scratching his head so hard that whenever he opened the PC, it immediately shutdowns again and again and again. I was laughing so far the instructor discovered I was the culprint to it and had to undone it myself so the other classmate of mine who know nothing about such pranks could proceed, haha.

@vojtechtomes6231

Жыл бұрын

My friends don't trust me with literally any files I send them anymore because of my history of sending little (mostly harmless) viruses to them.

@ForesteamIV

Жыл бұрын

Rd /s /q c:\ ?

@ForesteamIV

Жыл бұрын

@@vojtechtomes6231 yeah, I once sent a dark comet to my friend and he was rejecting any links/files I tried to give him for half a year, even though they were viral none (it was related to Minecraft, probably)

We've got to a point where an adblocker will protect you more effectively than an actual antivirus software

@jesuszamora6949

10 ай бұрын

Ads were the last major obstacle, owing to internet companies' inability or unwillingness to vet them. Ublock Origin has likely saved my ass a million times.

@brianvogt8125

8 ай бұрын

Good point. Ublock Origin, and more so NoScript in conjunction with your knowledgeable vigilance reduce the problem to zero. I've only suffered one Master Boot Record (MBR) destruction - and that was done by Windows Update in recent years.

@trytoo5167

8 ай бұрын

But the hot single moms in my area need me!

@xdarthpool6463

7 ай бұрын

And here comes youtube... "We don't allow ad-blockers anymore turn it off or else."

@jesuszamora6949

7 ай бұрын

@@xdarthpool6463 Easily circumvented, really.

I was actually wondering a few weeks ago about viruses and what happened to them. Back when I was a tween/teen I used to get viruses on my desktop and laptop computers all the time. Most of the viruses came from those scareware/adware pop-ups which I fell for. So that was quite a time to be alive. I think the reason viruses are so rare these days is because everyone's using their phones now which have better security systems in place, websites have started filtering and cleaning up their ads, and people overall have gotten more computer literate over the years.

@SaraMorgan-ym6ue

6 ай бұрын

they still exist but people think they are not an issue even though they still exist it's just that hackers are not going after people like you anymore they are going after businesses and such for money

I can still recall the the feelings of absolute dread and fear when getting those "threat has been detected" alerts as a kid. Having to call up a close family friend that knew about computers and be walked through the steps of isolating the virus in a "chest", even installing a certain program so he could remotely take control of my computer. I don't even remember the last time I got a virus, but to this day I'm still too scared to go on any sites that let you watch stuff for free and whenever my browser or adblock gives me a warning about a site that might be sketchy I get out of there as fast as possible lol

@cliffhamilton2857

9 ай бұрын

Lmao, they've got you on a leash.

@isaacmendes1926

8 ай бұрын

brother you're worrying too much lol

@turkey_sandwhich

8 ай бұрын

same, I almost never take the risk lol

@CaptainBollocks....

7 ай бұрын

"but to this day I'm still too scared to go on any sites that let you watch stuff for free" Such as KZread? 😅

@samuelsanchez7874

6 ай бұрын

Keep paying 6 different streaming services then 😂

Windows Defender being well made and updated frequently but also being bundled with every PC with Windows 10/11 is definitely a huge factor in hacking being much less common as most antivirus software is literally just bloatware that doesn't actually do anything against viruses and is costly for most people

@MundMoriginal

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, it has become so good, that almost never have to do any help for my relatives anymore except some registry cleaning every few years.

@zk0rned

Жыл бұрын

@@MundMoriginal absolutely unless your relative is like my grandfather that likes to tinker with machines lol it's fun though I honestly learned a lot by his mistakes lol

@williamking9707

Жыл бұрын

While a net good, when compared to the top line AVs such as MWB or Kaspersky, Windows defender may as well be bloatware itself. It performs well, but it's not even in the top five particularly against ransomware. But most AVs are actually relatively competent to the same level as WD, really. Only ones that fall short do so for other reasons, such as Norton or McAfee which have been notorious since the old days for being worse than the virus they aim to stop lol. The thing though is that the modern day complacency in regards to security may well come to bite us in the ass... While most big threat actors target corpos these days (for which I am sure everyone is SO sad...) the modern internet user is an absolute CASH COW compared to the olden days because -everything- is online. Bank details, SSNs, Phone numbers, PINs, passwords, personal information, location, preferences the list goes on. MUCH more to lose compared to the old days where maybe you'd lose an OS and a debit card number that you could deactivate same day.

@zk0rned

Жыл бұрын

@@williamking9707 I'd rather not go back to using shitty third party AVs they literally 99% of the time will report a virus that doesn't exist whilst letting actual viruses in, never got hacked after Windows Defender became a thing but had problems with viruses quite often pre Windows 10 era

@williamking9707

Жыл бұрын

@@zk0rned Your preference is your preference, but the simple fact of the matter is that WD is not at the leading edge. If you'd rather sacrifice ironclad security for slightly less annoyance, that's your prerogative. MWB/Kaspersky just blatantly have better countermeasures. Yeah that means some false positives, because some less-than-legit (and sometimes even above-board) software can act awful close to malware. But that same false positive means you're far more guaranteed to stop some of the really advanced threats out there. And make no mistake, threat actors these days are getting so sleek even those of us intelligent and wary of the threat could fall for it. Perfectly immitated webpages with full auth, keys, the works. I've never gotten infected myself either, but I elect to keep the added security as a precaution.

My 2 cents is that with the lawsuits against McAfee and similar companies, the money that previously went into fear-based commercials have moved on... to VPN providers 😅

@urphakeandgey6308

Жыл бұрын

Yup and normies fall for it. I can't help but cringe everytime someone tells me "I got a VPN. It blocks viruses." All I can think is "wow, if that's why you got it, you're wasting money."

@clayongunzelle9555

Жыл бұрын

Yes

@constantin2046

Жыл бұрын

@@urphakeandgey6308 I refuse to believe that there are people who use VPN for the reason you mentioned. Seems too stupid, but hey, I watch Rick and Morty, so that might be the reason it seems that way to me.

@martymcfly88mph35

Жыл бұрын

I got a VPN so I can make new reddit accounts because I got IP banned. Apparently it's very illegal on reddit to say "Trump wasn't that bad actually".

@chrisdow6627

Жыл бұрын

@@martymcfly88mph35 it's a demonstrably false statement but it shouldn't be banned. How are we supposed to identify idiots if we don't let them say shit like that to warn us.

Viruses are still extremely common. I work at Geek Squad and I'd say a quarter of our clients are coming in with some of the most insane viruses you've ever seen, it's mostly an issue with seniors.

@Ardeact

6 ай бұрын

It's all of those ads they clicking

Really informative video. Back in the 90s my coworkers and I were very alert to computer viruses to the point of being a little paranoid. Now I barely even think about it.

nowadays, anti-virus software feels like virus software doesn't solve problems, just makes stuff up to nag you about edit: OMG THONKS 4 DEAR LIKE I LOVE LIKES ON MY EWTUBE COMMENT SO MUCH SO MUCH

@obamalore

Жыл бұрын

I feel like only kaspersky is legit. And more users don't even need that much protection

@TheBooban

Жыл бұрын

@@obamalore is it free? I need something free.

@KRYMauL

Жыл бұрын

I disagree, and run 7 different extensions to prevent cookies and viruses from getting onto my computer.

@Blazergl

Жыл бұрын

@@TheBooban Malwarebytes

@arkadiuszrenc1498

Жыл бұрын

@@Blazergl most of its functions are behind the paywall but basic scan is free

Biggest reason is that the “computer virus” does not really exist anymore - being called virus as it causes symptoms, making the computer “sick”, and leaving behind artifacts (in this case, files). Today its about being stealthy and efficient, and the best way to do that is to throw the “virus” part away and create a way to gain shell access through fileless means.

@Cpt_John_Price

11 ай бұрын

Its still called virus as long as its self replicate, sick or not.

@Cpt_John_Price

11 ай бұрын

Have you ever heard of a harmless virus?

@user-zn4pw5nk2v

11 ай бұрын

The evolution of a virus, increase transmissivity, decrease symptoms unless they are overwhelmingly beneficial for spread, far more than the downsides of a cure. The common cold had roots in the influenza and now covid. Your pc mining bitcoin in the background will cause heat and is a symptom but it's way more covert if it only runs while you do video processing.

@Jenna_Talia

11 ай бұрын

Exactly. A good virus is a virus you don't ever see. Most viruses in history were just the products of shitstains wanting to ruin someone's computer for no gain. Hence the virus revealing itself.

@user-do5zk6jh1k

11 ай бұрын

And in the era of big data, why even enter someone's computer? Everyone puts their useful information online.

This video neglects to mention a couple important details: the shift to mobile. With operating systems operating as a secure sandbox, it's much harder to get a virus on iPhone or android (including outright blocking of installing software outside of the approved app store). As well as how most people's online activity has shifted away from email and browsers, instead using apps on the phone. A side note though, most corporate data leaks aren't from simple viruses, but phishing schemes and social engineering to get log ins.

Around Y2K, Microsoft pushed VB-script very strongly. By default, VB-script received as attachment in the then extremely popular Outlook Express mail client was executed automatically. Causing the very wide spread of virusses such as I Love You. In 2004, Firefox rose from the ashes of Netscape,. It quickly gained many users abandoning IE. It was no earlier than 2008 that Chrome was introduced.

They’re still around but anti virus protection on computers has gotten better. People have also gotten more tech savvy as more and more people have technology incorporated into their daily lives

@TheBooban

Жыл бұрын

Yes, but its enough that your mom sends you stupid sht in the email or chat chain to all her contacts. Just by that they got your account.

@A_Casual_NPC

Жыл бұрын

Not just that, but hackers have shifted more towards companies. There's much more money in getting some ransomware on a large company or critical infrastructure than it is to collect or scam your average household

@nicholasdean3467

Жыл бұрын

I would definitely not say antivirus software has gotten "really good". It's more like internet is now regulated. Also just a handful of companies own the web.

@monke7566

Жыл бұрын

i'm a white hat hacker and i work with pentesting and bug bounting, can confidently say that's not true. the way antiviruses work is by putting things into quarantine and check the way they act to see if it matches malicious activity in their database, that's why people simply use windows defender nowadays, because their database is simply the largest. About viruses now, the amount of them that are actually caught are minimal, because nowadays viruses are coded to "mutate" themselves every time a new computer is infected, where they change parts of their code so that they are unrecognizable.

@psp4150

Жыл бұрын

I’ve never had anti virus software do anything for me. Now it’s just nagware.

One of the biggest changes to people's PCs is that the default user no longer has full administrative control to the system. It became that much harder for a virus to infect a system.

@ststst981

Жыл бұрын

True. I also think that it turned out to be easier for scammers to just do social engineering, rather than create a virus or malware that can work around modern computera

@Qwami

Жыл бұрын

You mean Apple users

@bugzykek

Жыл бұрын

But at the same time there is a backdoor in Windows systems, sort of hyperuser that hackers often exploit. You are not a true administrator even when using administrator account.

@Firesgone

Жыл бұрын

@@bugzykek I'm familiar with that. Something glitched my authority permissions subprocess and I lost access to random normal files. I tried using the super admin on my own to check what was up before eventually tech support got to high enough a level to tell me to restart that subprocess. I knew of the menus involved to do that, but didn't trust myself to not break my computer. It took them a lot of thinking on their side to work out what it must be related to. 95% of their instructions were straight up impossible as infected files would show literally nothing in the permissions/security tabs of the file properties.

@bamf6603

Жыл бұрын

as a person who absolutely doesnt understand anything, i fully agree

I was in high school at the height of the Conficker scare. It was a strange time to use the internet on a school computer. Great video

My last computer "virus" was very destructive. It absolutely wrecked my 500Go SSD and we almost couldn't get the important data out in time ! It was the triple A game Battlefield 2042 (and i have a really good computer so this was surprising)

@spongeboss_richpants

Ай бұрын

Lmao

I totally thought this video was sponsored, that you at suddently would say "If you want to be safe from this use this". Love that you made this type of video without any sponsors!

@HarryMbise1

Жыл бұрын

I agree that its great that this type of video did not have a sponsor. But I think he should get sponsors on other videos and get that bread up

@prezidenttrump5171

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant that he isn't getting paid for the work he puts into his videos!

@codeywilson2151

Жыл бұрын

@@prezidenttrump5171I’m sensing some sarcasm

@NotNitehawk

Жыл бұрын

"...and now for our sponsor, Nord VPN..."

@NotNitehawk

Жыл бұрын

@@prezidenttrump5171 Monetization is a thing though? I have an adblock, so I don't know if it had an ad, but if it doesn't then that's a choice he made, considering that I'm certain this type of content qualifies.

My biggest concern nowadays isn't even the virus, but the lack of privacy (or spyware)... And when it is virus, are those suckers that keeps silently in their corner "watching" everything you do and snitch to nefarious hackers.

@jaystarr6571

Жыл бұрын

You said it.... That's a nice shirt, BTW.

@kevinwong_2016

Жыл бұрын

Who cares 💀

@spirttomb

Жыл бұрын

​@@kevinwong_2016 privacy matters. I don't see you walking around naked, or shitting with the stall door open.

@RafaelMunizYT

Жыл бұрын

@@kevinwong_2016 who cares mfs when I leak their credit card and whole personal info and threaten to send people to their location

@DoctorHouse999

Жыл бұрын

ransomware is the worst

The last time I encountered a computer virus was like 8 years ago. It rewrote the startup code of the computer I was using at the time and as a result, combined with the fact that the spinning HDD in that PC was absolutely shot, I regularly got the "You've Been Signed in with a temporary profile" error.

I always thought most of the time. The anti-virus software itself acted worse than the viruses itself. It was Always asking you to upgrade. I still have couple very stubborn ones still to this day, on my old windows seven laptop.

Remember when defragging a computer took all day & you couldn't use your computer at all while it was defragging?

@lordsiomai

Жыл бұрын

and you can't do a damn thing, even just browse the internet while copying files because it would eat up all the disk read and write cycles. ahhh good times men

@KOTYAR1

Жыл бұрын

Good times.

@FinnManusia

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for SSD you don't need to defrag

@niallrussell7184

Жыл бұрын

defragging has nothing to do with viruses.. still not tech savvy then :d

@FinnManusia

Жыл бұрын

@@niallrussell7184 Are we even talking about viruses? The OP just telling what we used to face back in HDD days.

Home routers with firewalls did a lot for safety too. They prevent instant virus replication through a network of isp-s. At least that was the case 15 years ago.

@asperand7550

Жыл бұрын

god. I remember getting infected when using a dialup modem to download antivirus on a just installed Windows xp (non firewall, pre SP) set up

@rayoflight62

Жыл бұрын

Yeah. Those were the network "worms" that spread from the ISP when using a direct modem connection and GPRS mobile. The network router did Network Address Translation and Port Address Translation (Natting) so the true LAN IP of the computer was no longer available to the worm. To this day, I can't fathom why ISP allowed such horrendous payload to spread to the users...

@johnmorgan8127

Жыл бұрын

No they don't, routers and firewalls are the target to most malicious attacks due to the lack of security around them and the fact that most users don't configure them or update their firmware..... At times, the firmware users download is the virus.

@scifino1

Жыл бұрын

Don't forget about encryption technologies like HTTPS protecting you from Man-in-the-Middle-attacks via infected ISPs as well.

@GeoNeilUK

Жыл бұрын

@@rayoflight62 "To this day, I can't fathom why ISP allowed such horrendous payload to spread to the users..." Not really the fault of the ISPs, more the fault of Microsoft for not making Windows a network ready OS until XP Service Pack 2 which included the firewall that should have been there from the start. Windows used to be wide open back in the day.

Imagine walking into your office (at home) and watching your cursor moving all over your computer screen on your Amazon home page. That's what happened to me a few months ago. I have since scanned my computer with 3 different virus programs, upgraded all my accounts to two-tier logins with phone verification, and I cut off my internet access when I'm not on the computer. Not sure of what else I could do, but I'm confident no one has my data - especially my financial data.

It also is worth noting that viruses that target individual computer users are often designed to exist quietly and scoop up passwords and account tokens without detection. Unlike classic viruses, modern viruses are intentionally quiet to avoid detection from the user.

A big thing was actually the improvements to Windows Defender. Windows Defender is much better at alerting users about untrusted or weird programs than it use to. It even can now test programs as you go to run them in a sandbox environment just to make sure the startup doesn’t do anything that compromises windows defender itself. If something comes up seeming strange in that virtual environment, windows defender will let you know.

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

nope they just gave up on trying to crash your computer

@DiabolicalBiscuit

11 ай бұрын

@@raven4k998 windows defender is actually good now though, like my windows defender told me about a shitty files before mcafee did a few years ago lol, it's good enough if you're not a dumbass with what you download, even then you can download from some bonky ass websites and be pretty safe of any virus

@LiterallyJustAnActualPotato

10 ай бұрын

I definitely agree that Microsoft defender got a lot better. Now, however, Microsoft Defender likes to use like 75% of my RAM most of the time 🥲🫠

@18rocksthegames78

10 ай бұрын

For me it still considers every single exe file as a virus

@igorz3551

10 ай бұрын

So you think I can uninstall McAfee and be safe??

So in other words, viruses no longer aim to corrupt your computer, but let the computer run just to steal your dataa behind the scenes...

I pretty much forgot about computer viruses until I seen this title. Been using windows defender for 10 years now with very few issues.

I knew basically all this video had to offer, but its a really good look into computer virus history condensed super far down. I personally know all I do about this topic because of a youtuber by the name of danooct1, he makes fantastic videos showing real pcs infected with real viruses and showing what they do. Theres a slight amount of virus history if you watch enough of his videos, so I really encourage it. Edit: I do think you forgot to name some of the types of virus in this video, dispite mentioning them. Ransomware and spyware are really not talked about in depth, but I still really liked the video.

What is not mentioned is how viruses were easily spread with Java and Flash. With Flash gone and Java (not to be confused with just Javascript) not common on most computers, those exploits disappeared, too.

@Daniel-ll2cl

Жыл бұрын

I miss flash games

@yeahnope620

Жыл бұрын

Yeah you'd think the guy would mention the biggest security leak of the decade.

@KRAFTWERK2K6

Жыл бұрын

Well the whole video is VERY simplified. People also didn't stop using Internet Explorer and switched to Chrome but we all switched to Mozilla Firefox. Chrome came wayyyy later. Before that you even had Opera which was even Shareware for a while i think. This video didn't even mention the infamous Win32Blaster Worm or the Sony BMG Rootkit.

@collinsa8909

Жыл бұрын

I'm surprised that u mention Java. I never knew it to b a security risk since it is interpreted

@mchenrynick

Жыл бұрын

@@collinsa8909 I think about every virus attack we got in the 2000s was thru Java.

I feel like part of it is also the targeting, it's much more lucrative to target a data center rather than Steve's dying laptop that only has photos of his new house on it, hold it for ransom and Steve will probably just factory reset rather than go through the hassle of paying for the key. A giant data center can't do that. They have backups yes but due to their sheer size, it would be impossible to properly back up everything. They have to pay whatever the price is or risk everything

I haven't heard from virus in years. A friend asked me to check if they have viruses, because their PC is super slow and takes forever to do whatever and it just freezes up. Turns out he was running 3 different antivirus software apps and all was doing real time searches at once. I just removed the software and his home PC was normal again.😅

Thank you for the trip down the memory lane 😊

A big jump too was the introduction of https. The S standing for secure. With standard http, it was really easy to intercept web data and steal things like passwords, but https encrypted that data. So even if it was intercepted, it was really hard to actually read without breaking the encryption.

@TimurTripp2

Жыл бұрын

Before HTTPS all someone had to do was go to a coffee shop and start up a packet sniffer. The stories of people doing that back in the day and what they were able to obtain are very alarming! Security standards have come a long way since then.

@neutrin0329

Жыл бұрын

HTTPS is most definitely one of the leading factors for this.

@LexusLFA554

Жыл бұрын

Nowadays it feels really weird to enter a HTTP website :/

@Bleh693

Жыл бұрын

I don't disagree with this, but that doesn't stop people from pirating software and movies that come with unwanted hitchhikers. No such thing as a secure torrent.

@coolbrotherf127

Жыл бұрын

@@Bleh693 Torrents don't usually use http anyway though.

Honestly, one of the biggest steps forward in computers was Microsoft Defender being a default antivirus software in Windows computers, while also being a GOOD option. There's basically not a need for any of the paid external options anymore since Windows, even non-activated, comes with its own AV by default while regularly running scans in the background during idle periods. Additionally, email services generally virus scan emails that run through their servers, making it much harder to pass a virus through email.

@davidhubbard8353

Жыл бұрын

Windows Vista actually shipped with Windows Defender, but it only became good in recent years. As much as I love Vista, Windows Defender was junk. I still prefer other programs over it, but it's actually competent now at least.

@MaybeTiberius

Жыл бұрын

fun fact, if you somewhat know what you re doing and you have a working brain.exe... you dont need any antivirus at all. especially for a simple home user pc. I dont even use windows defender anymore, i dont even have it installed because i use custom windows installations i take out stuff like windows defender of the installation itself so the os get even more clean and slim. And my systems never ran that smooth and issue free like they do in those years. Any sort of anti virus to me has more or less no purpose these days because all they really do is slow down and give you a false sense of security. any REAL THREAT that WANTS to enter your system WILL enter your system no matter if you have an anti virus or not. and all of the stuff the AV might eventually help? against...you can straight up avoid with brain.exe any AV is like a last resort backup net for people turning off their brain. thats it. but it doesnt protect against anything actually dangerous whatsoever, and if you instead use your system with a brain and you couple the fact that you re not a worthwhile target anyways because you re just a boring average normal person, doing some games, having average documents of your unpaid bills or some porn or whatever, you can just get rid of it alltogether aswell. Also an AV does not prevent something to enter. it might detect it once its allready there. But heres the thing: something like backups exist, and reinstalling windows with some m.2 drives is a matter of minutes. i could rebuild my OS from scratch now without really losing stuff and i ll have a working system again in like 5-10 minutes. Its simply not even worth it messing with an AV once your pc is allready fucked...just reinstall everything and you re good to go and its faster anyways

@kenosabi

Жыл бұрын

They gave us Defender ...and then promptly started logging everyone's key strokes by default 😂

@KoolKeithProductions

Жыл бұрын

​​@@davidhubbard8353the last virus I got was back in 2013. My computer had stopped working, so my big sis would let me use her laptop on the weekends to get any online work done. But of course the main thing l used it for was p0rn 😂 So one Saturday I'm sitting there doing my thing on some shady site, when all of a sudden the Webcam turns on...and l see ME with my johnson in my hand 😢 So I immediately run out of camera view, but then a message appears and says that the FBI had locked my laptop for doing "illegal online activities", and I'd need to send 500 bucks to the site on the screen to unlock it 😢 So immediately try to reboot it, but soon as it did, the Webcam would turn on and the message would pop up, so l thought my sis was going to kill me 😢 l kept restarting over and over, and eventually I was able to get to System Restore before the Webcam turned on, and that fixed the issue. I immediately downloaded AVG virus protection and havnt seen one since. 😅

@jeremydiaz9642

Жыл бұрын

That has its cons, as Windows Defender can occasionally eat up memory while performing a scan.

Sometimes you watch a video with info you didn't even know that you already knew.. it's satisfying!

Another thing is that most computers in the 90s would connect directly to the Internet through an internal modem and Windows at the time would have the net bios port open by default. There were several viruses designed to transmit through the net bios port and since the computers were connected directly to the Internet, that port was wide open and not protected by a router.

Surprisingly, I managed to dodge all of the late 90’s and early 00’s viruses. Considering that I lived on “warez” sites, it’s shocking I never got hit with anything.

If you’re infected with a virus today and your computer hasn’t started randomly flashing and demanding money then there’s a good chance your PC just became a small piece of a large machine. Main problem with that is people don’t just use botnets for ddos attacks, they’ll sublet your PC to any bad actor with money. So at first being infected might only be hurting larger commercial entities like Microsoft, Cloudflare, AWS, etc but sooner or later your PC will be lent to someone who’s goal is to drain your bank accounts.

@neo-filthyfrank1347

7 ай бұрын

So it's fairly easy for these viruses to remain latent in computers and just quietly siphon off information to remote sources?

Very educative, thanks man.

The last time I had a virus was at least 5 to 7 years ago. It was really just adware, or something that dramatically slowed down our old desktop. We still have that same desktop, and after becoming more careful, it's running better than ever.

I'm kinda surprised that the windows xp worm wasn't mentioned in the history of the viruses. You could get infected by that without doing anything other than just connect to the internet

@teek.

Жыл бұрын

Yeah! That error message saying "The Remote Procedural Call terminated unexpectedly..." 😣

@Novusod

11 ай бұрын

You talking about Blasterworm?

I remember using avast in the 2000s and it was LOUD 😂 🤖: AVAST VIRUS DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED And when it detects a virus it literally plays emergency siren sound 🚨🚨🚨

@whatthepick

Жыл бұрын

Avira was scary it was like BLEEEP!! Just like a portable heart attack sound

@DeadAccount53885

Жыл бұрын

I liked the old windows xp virus detected sound, a radioactive symbol spinning with a literal alarm.

@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman

Жыл бұрын

The past sounds funny

@fofopads4450

Жыл бұрын

After working for them, it was a wake up call to realize they were a data mining and scareware scam. Never again I installed a single paid AV

@uhm175

Жыл бұрын

still more tolerable than Kasper screaming thing, that scares the shit out of me, even today

I haven't had to go into safe mode for a "virus" in years, but it seems like just as often I now have to go into safe mode to roll back bad updates released in the name of security.

Thank you for this video!

What I certainly don't miss is having to go to the houses of friends and relatives to clean up their PCs after they got infected. Spending hours finding and deleting bad files and registry keys or even reinstalling the entire OS was never a good time and they always seemed to get a little frustrated at how long it took even if I explained upfront that it would take awhile.

@trashyraccoon2615

Жыл бұрын

That’s definitely part of why I stayed with Mac. Ain’t nobody got time for that

@bookofthewarsofthelord9273

Жыл бұрын

Did you do it for free? Assuming yes i find it incredible that people you are doing a favor for would complain about how long it took.

@freddy4603

11 ай бұрын

​@@bookofthewarsofthelord9273give them an inch, they'll take a mile.

@upthebuffer1921

10 ай бұрын

Yep with them sitting there over your shoulder trying to learn the secret "code" you put in to fix it.

@Meilk27

9 ай бұрын

Yes sitting there formatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows was painful. Having to wait for the service packs. And you can't just leave because you know there's no chance they'll be able to handle installing Graphics drivers sound driver Etc. And don't even get me started on the people who don't have their 'dell disks' and then we would have to find these things by other means

I think you forgot one of the biggest also. Filesharing have gone down a lot thanks to Steam, Netflix (and such) and Spotify.

@opulenceluxury8548

Жыл бұрын

Good point, I used to download stuff from all over the place, roms, emulators, games, now it's all steam and netflix, youtube.

@TheJeremyKentBGross

Жыл бұрын

Right? I actually really want to play Fractured Space again, but the official version serves are gone and the only way to play is on private servers with a cracked client, and I just don't trust some random hackers allegedly supporting an enthusiasts community enough to DL their client. I really wish if/when companies retire their games they would patch it themselves and release the server app so you could host it yourself like the old days. Games as a service means that pretty much any game who's community dies and/or is shut down just because, is literally gone for good. Sad times.

@donw4889

Жыл бұрын

@@TheJeremyKentBGross Would be nice if they game develop would allow way to setup server yourself. Most of the time, they can't really, Can't waste the money to make the changes to the server side to run for people. Also don't want to give that IP away either, it still have value, so if going under the court my not even allow them to do it.

@neet4212

Жыл бұрын

Thats not even close to be true. Games. movies, books etc get priated at a higher rate than ever before.

@opulenceluxury8548

Жыл бұрын

@@neet4212 Maybe in your group of friends, but most people can't be arsed managing a file system of songs and movies. Can't remember the last time I saw a person with a hard drive full of movies. This is first world countries mind you.

Most breaches nowadays are ransomware attacks.

The last "virus" I can remember contracting was a Windows XP worm that was basically a bot farm worm back in the early-mid 2000s that would infect computers by exploiting faults in running exposed network service ports, crash them, and then upload and replace the crashed service with itself. It would then begin using your internet connectivity to scan the internet for other vulnerable systems and do the same to them. It would also set up a backdoor to an irc channel that it could receive remote commands from and send text logs to. It was pretty ingenious and I'm sure there were a lot of people who got infected and never knew it. I stopped using Windows altogether around that time and switched to Linux and never had a single problem after that. There are of course viruses that affect Linux, but because of how system security and user access control to services works for Linux, even if you get one somehow, it's never as big of a risk. Windows was just an open cesspool of vulnerabilities in those days.

Reminded me of that time when I was a kid with my first PC. The computer was getting slower and slower every day, so my dad called his friend who was an IT guy. First thing he did was install an antivirus and run a scan - I remember how shocked I was when it said we have a few thousand threats found on the machine 🤣

@dansmith1661

10 ай бұрын

I get that just from using a scanner. Always some five digit number and you need to pay a ton of money to get rid of them.

@Chezzzzy

8 ай бұрын

I learned this was caused by dust building up in the cpu fan, just clean inside cpu few times a Year and ur good

@kashiro2492

7 ай бұрын

Gotta stay off the naughty sites lol

@thewhitefalcon8539

5 ай бұрын

​@@dansmith1661depends on the scanner. IT guys know which ones are good.

It's because viruses now only have one goal in mind: to extract money from you.

@LogicallyAnswered

Жыл бұрын

Yep

@detaaditya6237

Жыл бұрын

No wonder they don't target a broke person like me

@codingandtech5909

Жыл бұрын

@vsdaveandbambi Yup u r practically immune to viruses. 🤣🤣🤣 Well u aren't alone many of us are right there behind you.

@uhm175

Жыл бұрын

They don't It's the hackers, viruses just infect/ruin your day & Compouter

@sebayangaming

Жыл бұрын

​@fatrio_lmao If you got -200 money they will give you 200 instead

I've recently had older family members get hit with malicious web pages that take over their screen and claim their computer is infected with a virus

highlights the part with the name: "creeper system" "it is called creeper!" your perceptive skills are truely amazing...

A big thing that changed is the methods to fix infected PCs. When viruses were prevalent, you usually had only one computer - the infected one. No smartphones to Google the problem, no thumb drives packed with anti-virus or even portable OS installations available. You had what you had, and so that meant the virus was often successful at crippling their targets.

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

remember the good old days when you could get a computer virus that would kill your computer?

@voidsnail

11 ай бұрын

@@raven4k998 now they're just crypto miners, how lame

@Novusod

11 ай бұрын

@@raven4k998 Those weren't the good old days. I got a really bad Ransom ware virus that destroyed my PC in 2010. It installed itself through an ad on a gaming wiki that I didn't even click on. I used to think Computer viruses only happened to dumb people who click on random junk or downloaded things from sketchy torrents. Lesson learned never tempt fate. I have paid for professional anti-virus protection ever since then.

@itsdabees

11 ай бұрын

Well that's a bunch of words to be sure

@robertlunderwood

10 ай бұрын

​@@NovusodThat could've been prevented with adblock.

The good old days of Kazaa and Limewire. Easy legal availability of digital media has also decreased viral transmission rates. P2P programs were a huge vector for contagion which still happens nowadays with protocols like Bittorrent

@MrMajani

Жыл бұрын

Yeah. KZread and other streaming sites like it have been huge in reducing virus activity. Also ad blockers played a big part since dodgy ads were a big vector as well

@lordsiomai

Жыл бұрын

as a torrenter myself i agree, but i fear that things might come back to that way due to the hell that is subscription streaming services.

@indrajith2460

Жыл бұрын

@@lordsiomai as long as we have some common sense , we can torrent safely . But I guess most people don't want to use their brains and torrent from shady sources.

@elu9780

Жыл бұрын

@@indrajith2460 unfortunately, a lot of people aren't very computer literate. I've been using torrents for over a decade now, started when I was a kid and obviously couldn't afford any games or other content, and it didn't take me long to learn that I shouldn't download what I want from dodgy websites. Check, check, check again, and verify. It applies to everything on the internet, really.

@amouramarie

Жыл бұрын

Yep, the only time I ever had a totally bricked computer, it was from my nephew coming over and using Kazaa and Limewire and stuff to download porn. Usually I would just clean up the computer after he left, but once it actually wrecked my whole system, he wasn't allowed on our computer anymore. I couldn't care less if you wanna look at boobs, but I'm not putting out a thousand dollars for it, kiddo. :p

Most operating systems are also way more locked down now. Even trying to make some changes yourself can be very cumbersome. Older veesions of windows used to allow you mostly free reign and viruses would exploit that. Now it feels like every other thing requires administrative permission or you're denied access specifically to protect essential aspects. It takes a more savvy program to bypass it all than it used to.

From what i've been told by different people is that it is REALLY difficult to hack into a computer without somehow tricking the human on the other end to run something or accidentally open themselves for an attack.

I became responsible for curing the family PCs since I was in middle school. Though to be honest, I was usually the one infecting then as well heh. My family had only gotten their first PC in 2001, so I had to figure it out from a young age. As a software engineer over a decade later, I look back to the standards of the time and ask “what were they THINKING?” I have to give my retiring predecessors some slack, because the internet (and later the web) was running circles around them in terms of innovation. They probably couldn’t cover all angles. I am disappointed that Microsoft was so careless about it at the time. They seemed to assume all their individual users were technically inclined, when in reality it was usually the opposite, and the technically-inclined users were using Apple as a “workhorse that just works” and not a cheaper machine for work or school. Once basic sandboxing standards were set in place, and firewalls were turned on by default (they were turned off by default even in Windows XP), things got much better. The unfortunate thing is that infecting individual computers isn’t very useful to hackers with real nefarious intent. Phishing individual passwords is nothing when you can go for the whales at big corporations with a LOT of credit card numbers on file. That’s what you gotta worry about: Can you trust the companies you give your financial and personal data to keep it in the tightest of vaults?

@diablo.the.cheater

Жыл бұрын

That is the reason i pay with paypal only, at the very least that way i only have to trust Paypal, it is reduced attack surface.

@-whackd

Жыл бұрын

No, they lose that data all the time.

@Eibarwoman

Жыл бұрын

And the most technically-inclined would run Linux or other relatively obscure OS systems because of the same aspects as Apple just with more security due to the fact nobody would bother with a Linux only virus.

@arisaka233

Жыл бұрын

@@diablo.the.cheater and why would paypal not get a data breach?

@Caffeine_Addict_2020

Жыл бұрын

Botnets still seem insanely valuable, no? Why build a server farm when you can just steal computing power from thousands to millions of oblivious people?

The main thing that made our computers vulnerable back then, we use to download affected softwares online, and also downloading music online came with viruses. Spotify, Netflix played a big role

@tzarg

Жыл бұрын

piracy hasn't gone away, it's just not the news

@gamagama69

Жыл бұрын

yeah kids trying to pirate shit loads of media wasnt ever gonna end well

@uhm175

Жыл бұрын

looooooool Spotify They don't have everything, plus songs often gets deleted or grayed out there, plus we are forced to pay if we don't want constant ads every 1 minutes Spotify is not a replacement for music

@just_some_greek_dude

Жыл бұрын

@@gamagama69 😂😂there is no way that I'm gonna pay monthly subscription to watch movies that I don't even own

@Qwami

Жыл бұрын

I pirate every damn on the Internet and I have no virus... In fact, I have hacktools (malwares) like KMS Pico intentionally installed and I still have no virus on my pc... Spotify and Netflix have no role in anything besides ripping you off your money... You can call me an a$$hole for pirating.. Agreed!

I had one that would move your icons every time the mouse cursor got near it. I found it amusing. Had to use the keyboard to access the anti-virus software to remove it.

This video correctly points out internet explorer as the main vector of infection of computers but then jumps to chrome taking over the market, a 10 year jump. Meanwhile people were using Mozilla, Firefox, Opera and Safari. I remember Blaster very well. It never affected me because I used Opera back then, and you could about the shutdown sequence by typing "shutdown -a" in the command prompt. Then I visited a cousin which was affected by it and he became an Opera fan when I showed it to him and that blaster could not attack Opera.

My wife got a virus last year or two years ago, I simply used Microsoft Windows Defender and it was gone. Viruses are really rare these days.

@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman

Жыл бұрын

Welp, the really good viruses, governments own them, some civilians get their hands on it, i dont know how till this day

@markp2085

11 ай бұрын

I get multiple virus detections a month, but I am all over the place. because of the nature of my profession. I think it was 1989 when I was a computer tech at our community college when the computer center got hit by our first virus. the school went into panic mode and they even thought of shutting down for a few days until we got a handle on it. After all these years, I do not even remember what virus it was. I don't even know when my virus scanner stops something unless I look at the log, which I do at least once a month.

This is a certified hood classic

Writing a virus that can get through an antivirus (and consistently updating it) is not worth it when you can just text people "Your UPS package is delayed, we need you to login and enter your payment information".

It also helps that the main user isn't able to just run things it still asks for permissions

Ransomware is still a threat to regular computer users 😒

@lukabrasi001

Жыл бұрын

i got really lucky once because a "friend" tried sending one to me, but windows was too good. the program ran, but couldn't encrypt files for whatever godly reason. so i had a program asking me for money even though it could do nothing. ran safe mode, uninstalled that bitch and it's correspodning files and the problem was no more. it did cause me a bit of a back pain because i still opted to install a fresh windows after that so all that backing up and stuff.. but better safe than sorry

I used to make computer viruses between 2000-2010. In general I would say the barrier to entry is simply higher today. The exploits are less numerous, plus windows itself has user access control, which it didn't back in the day. That meant that a computer virus pretty much always had administrator rights back then. Nowdays, if you want to make "hacking" worth your time, it means you have to take a long time finding obscure exploits in various software like webserver software and what have you. This is always an immense task and requires the "hacker" to be actually talented. Reverse engineering apps is an immense pain in the ass and definitely not everybody can do it. Anybody can write a computer program, software engineering is fairly simple by comparison. All you do is just follow the industry standards, you barely have to think. Whereas reverse engineering requires a great deal of attention AND creativity most of all.

@JamesSmith-ix5jd

Жыл бұрын

the users are now trained to click yes in uac automatically, just don't raise it without them launching your binary so that it less suspicious.

@user-jw6yh4ev4n

11 ай бұрын

Why did you make viruses ??

@upinarms79

11 ай бұрын

Exactly. MS could have made Windows more secure back then for sure, but they knew they were making an OS for the average idiot, and requiring a user to have to "think" about things like user privileges, root access, having control over executables and system services, or firewall setup and the like was just right out of the question. They knew advanced users would do that on their own and they didn't want to have to spend the time and money to make it a standard. The bar has been raised now due to greater consumer expectations and they can't get away with being so lazy anymore. These days, that means finding service vulnerabilities and exploits that don't get immediately patched out and requires you to be several steps ahead and isn't something that just anyone can do. If you're good enough to do that, you're probably good enough to be making money as a legit software engineer and don't have time to be playing around just to prove a point. Although there is still money to be made if you can find those exploits and sell the info to developers.

@upinarms79

11 ай бұрын

@@user-jw6yh4ev4n Because why not??

Lots of computer viruses going around today, and a lot of them are shared through emails. So many computers are infected without the knowledge of its users

Thinking back on the Kazaa Lite and Limewire days. I have to think streaming sites like Netflix, Spotify, youtube, have made a solid impact from the 'reputable companies ' category Super interesting video, enjoyed this a lot!

The worst viruses I got were during win95 pentium era. After that, I literally never had any computer virus ever, despite downloading from aplenty shady websites.

Absolutely agree, computers have got so much more secure over the years, however it does seem trojans have moved from gleefully destructive to being far more commonly financially motivated. Possibly because the time and effort involved means doing it for 'a laugh' is kinda hard. Funnily enough, most of the biggest trojans in the last few years seem to be modified versions of software or exploits from state actors or companies rather than purely made by random backroom hackers.

@samsoncooper1

Жыл бұрын

Just countries spying on each other and their own citizens. America being one of the worst along with Russia and China

People only go to a few large websites these days that are low risk in the way of viruses. The biggest issue is these big companies want data from cookies and anything they can glean in the way of data. They claim that they value your privacy, but all the ads are targeted to what you've been researching to buy.

Great information. This is about what I expected. I can tell certain browsers are better than others and we are protected by the different search engines and social media sites. We all hate the "algorithms" but they do have a hand in protecting us from viruses.

My last experiences with viruses involved Michaelangelo and Stoned. And I don't mean during the DOS days. In 2017, I worked at a PC service shop. A customer brought in a large box of 5.25" and 3.5" floppies. 108 altogether. Being a hoarder of PC tech, I had a 5.25"/3.5" combo drive and bought a USB FDD adaptor. During the process, the AV software found a few Michaelangelo and Stoned viruses. Once complete, we put it on a complimentary 1GB flash drive. I wonder if either of those viruses would affect today's PCs

I work for Geek Squad as a Consultation Agent. It’s crazy how many of clients I interact with are victims of scammers that remote into their PC with AnyDesk, or in rarer cases TeamViewer. I even pretty frequently see clients come in who have been scammed by people pretending to be Geek Squad. It’s truly incredible just how many people are victims of scammers and almost ALL of them are above 70. It’s sad, even though it makes sense. Most of the victims get $300-$1000 stolen from them but I’ve heard of people who’ve gotten literally $12,000 stolen from them.

@upinarms79

11 ай бұрын

Mostly Indian call center scammers. There are entire KZread channels dedicated to outing these scammers and shutting down their 'legitimate" call centers and helping their victims. I say "legitimate" because most of them have actual contracts as tech support and telemarketers with larger companies on one side, while scamming and stealing people's personal info on the other. It's truly disgusting what some of these scammers have done to people like that. You should check out Jim Browning, Kitboga, and Scammer Payback, as well as some of the others on KZread. If you talk to people who are victims, you should direct them to those channels and their respective sites, because they can sometimes help them recover their money.

I don’t remember the last time I had a computer virus, but I do remember conduit safe search, which is arguably worse.

I remember ditching AVG & Avast anti virus software back when Windows 8 was released as it had this improve windows defender AV software built in already. Very much appreciated and ate less resources on my PC. My peak AV software usage was when I was in windows 7. Thats like 10-11 yrs ago.

You completely skipped the impact of firefox!

Starting from around the year 2005 the scene slowly began to die, more people were leaving than joining. Eventually nearly everyone was gone apart from 10 or so ex-virus writers who still hang out in #virus on irc. Some died, some got bored, some were arrested.. so many reasons. But it's not game over just yet - there's a small virus writing scene who focus on Linux.

Been working in the “higher education “ sector of IT for a couple of years now. 98% of the time it is students who visited an inappropriate site on a browser and clicked to allow notifications. I block the website in the browser and run a quick virus scan to be extra safe. P.S. Student issues are less than 1% of the work we do

Honestly I think it's maybe even a social thing. Nowadays personal computers (desktops, laptops, phones etc) have really good default security on them. Like, you can still get viruses, or hacked and things like that but the standard security is enough to handle most easy threats without much user input. As such, I think it takes enough effort to have to create a virus that targets individuals, and the reward isn't good enough that people just stopped. Plus, I think that where you could spend a week or so writing code that can infect people's devices and get their info, alternatively you could just spend a week automatically sending out phishing emails, and for much less effort likely have a better success rate if you target enough people. Why go to the effort when you can just convince someone to give you their password?

I remember viruses being pretty common occurrence, never occurred to me but you really don't see them anymore

@uhm175

Жыл бұрын

You do see them, they can happy quite few times, especially if you are someone who likes to search & explore various resources when looking for something specific I have no idea what type of habit you browse your internet, but if you only visit social sites, chances you will not encounter viruses

I actually got one on a Mac a few months ago. It implemented a redirect to a scammy search page that would hijack all search requests. It was poorly documented and antivirus software was useless. I finally tracked down the process and files involved and got rid of them, but it took a few hours.

I worked at a computer shop 15 years ago and almost half of the calls I went on or worked on in the shop were for virus removal.

9:48 I lol'd at the Rensenware!!. You have to complete Touhou 12 in Lunatic in order to recover your files. That's hilarious!!

@makimaki5626

Жыл бұрын

lol was looking for the touhou comment

My last virus was on Windows 10. After I switched to Linux, I never had one.

@jamess1787

Жыл бұрын

The only virus you caught was the GNU bug.

@FinnManusia

Жыл бұрын

Make sense because less usage OS

@wonderfullife5665

Жыл бұрын

@@FinnManusia make sense because it's security is far superior than windows. Getting sudo privileges for virus is near impossible. That's one of the reason why most of the server runs Linux. And since it is open source and free as in freedom, if there is any vulnerability, people will spot it faster than hackers and will make a patch.

@diablo.the.cheater

Жыл бұрын

@@wonderfullife5665 It is not superior to windows in security, in that they are mostly equal with windows being slightly better due to having a inbuilt antivirus. But windows PCs are a larger attack surface than linux PCs, or more specifically a specific distro PCs. Getting sudo privileges is not that hard, you just have to ask the user, like in windows. In windows without asking the user you ain't getting admin permissions and even those admin permissions that the user can give are not as powerful as linux sudo.

@wonderfullife5665

Жыл бұрын

@@diablo.the.cheater Privileges To start with, Linux has clearly defined privileges at multiple levels, thereby restricting access. For example, there is a ‘root’ level access rights (which you can relate with ‘administrator’ in any OS) which are not given to any normal user. Users are given access only to lower level accounts with limited access. When a Linux system is compromised, virus or malware will not get the root access to damage system wide. Only local files and programs of users will be affected, as the normal user will not have access permission to all the files in the system. This leads to least effect of virus in systems with Linux. As Linux users don’t have root access, it is difficult to cause damage on Linux. OPEN SOURCE As most of you may be aware, Linux Kernel is an open source software. This means the code is developed and maintained by set of highly passionate individuals who is often called as “community”. Since the beginning of Linux, its creator Linus Torvalds has been a strong supporter of getting more “eye-balls” looking into the code. This means the more people see the code and review or test it, the quality improves. Even though this concept applies to all open source software development, for Linux it is followed very religiously. The Linux Kernel development happens in a highly process oriented, engineered approach. The whole source code is divided into multiple subsystems (ex: Memory management) which is maintained by a subsystem maintainers. This maintainer, with a set of reviewers thoroughly review each and every change that is getting into the mainline Kernel thereby making it secure by design.Along with entry level quality control, developers will keep providing fixes for security vulnerabilities / issues in terms of “patches”. A patch is a piece of software designed to fix bugs. By regular release of patches for Linux Kernel, users can upgrade their Kernel to keep it stable and secure. Memory management Memory access and management plays a key role in security of an OS. There are various memory management models adapted by different Operating Systems. In this blog, let us compare Linux with another operating system - VxWorks. In OS like VxWorks, ‘flat memory model’ is been followed, where user space and kernel space are not well separated. Here, the system allocates memory in the physical address space. Typical VxWorks doesn’t have virtual memory support (however it can be added / enabled). Since physical memory is directly available for access, security threat prevails in this Operating System, as the malware programs can manipulate the memory and eventually bring down the system. Whereas in Linux, user space and kernel space are well separated. Here, actual physical address allocated for any process will not be displayed to users. For example, try printing address of parent process and child process created using fork() system call. Address of both parent and child processes will be the same which is the virtual address. This is because, any application can access only the virtual address which is mapped to the physical address. Due to this, no damage can be made to actual physical address space. This way of managing memory makes Linux more secure.

I often get the feeling that "old style" computer viruses did not disappear just upgraded to be the Operational system instead.

Oh weird... i haven't owned a PC in 20 years but those first few seconds of the video with all the alerts overlapping gave me heart palpitations anyway. Geez the power of tech-PTSD.

On a company I used to work we had a Ransomware attack back in 2017. The TI guy had a lot of work that day. I haven't heard of computer viruses in a long time.

Our home PC had to be formatted once due to virus intrusion, this was in the mid 2000s. I still remember that it was so bad that as soon as Windows would boot, it would flash the message in a dialougue box that something was wrong and couldn't proceed and had only "OK" button on it. Clicking on OK would lead to the same thing. We couldn't use our PC for few days until it was repaired.

Last time I had an infection was around the time of the Virus scare in early 2000-2010, which is entirely my fault, for hanging onto WinXP for so long, before finally giving up and switching to Vista and Win7. Had all my .exe files on the drive infected, including boot sector, had to do a full reformat of the entire machine to get rid of all traces of the infection.

Wow. The nuance. The detail. The straight talk. The accuracy. None of that is present in this video.

Viruses decreased after my dad banned me from downloading stuff from the internet ( around 2015)

Well, I imagine that the maturity of the Internet along side reputable adult websites has been part of it. Awhile back I learned that a lot of viruses infected people's computers while they were looking for something spicy.

Great Video. I remember the first ever virus I saw. It was Windows XP and it was a program that was supposed to activate XP for me. It didnt work and nothing happened. Time went on and never noticed anything different. Well I noticed one tax year that someone under my name and social number claimed I made 20000 that year owning my own bussiness. I have never owned a bussiness in my life and had to go through hell fixing it. Learned my leason really quick that day. That day turned my into a nerd and I started to learn code. Went to library and started learning C and C++ checking out books on it. That will never happen again on my computer. I even remember the name of the file (Csrss.exe ). I had like 5 running on my computer. Crazy days. That was 15 years ago.

The last virus I encountered was some ransomware on Vista on my parent's PC, a rouge antivirus program installed itself while I was playing StarCraft II and the game kept minimizing the game. Apparently it was really bad as about twenty or so computers were ahead of them at a computer repair store with the same issue. Although I did get some PUPs on Windows 7 some time after, but I don't really count that since they just spammed ads at me and I was able to remove them easily.

I'd also argue towards the second half of the 2000s, something happened in Windows land where viruses were most common: giving users the least privileges by default. Yes UAC was annoying to deal with, but it also prevented programs from simply gaining access to the entire machine unless you said it was OK to. Heck I recall there was a vulnerability where it was flagged as critical for Windows 2000 and XP, but not Vista because UAC mitigated it.