Virus Infection

I was wondering if a virus/Trojan/Spyware/Worm can infect all my system on a home network. Also, would plugging a USB into a infected computer, and then into another infect a latter one? Thanks in advance.

 

Yes, plug a USB into an infected PC then plug it to another PC can infect that PC too, depend on the PC antivirus soft on that comp. Virus these day are very dangerous, so becareful.
A virus dont infected unless you access the file that infected, some viruses active as soon as you plug in your USB, but these can be detected by most antivirus, but if you access the file urself then the antivirus soft may not work
Above are my presonal opinion with virus.
Merry Xmas and Happy New Year

 

I plugged my usb (which is filled w/ word doc) into (what turned out to be an possibly infected ) comp. However, just used word on it, so would it be save to plugged it back to my virus-free laptop? I have important files on the USB, so some way, I have to get them back. On my laptop, I have Zone-Alarm installed and updated, so will that stop the virus(es). Will a computer be able to infect others if they are attached to the same network?

Happy Holidays,

 

Yes, it can certainly happen. My mate next door is living with a couple of roomates, all on a netword. One of them got the deadly CoolWebSearch and it infected all of their computers. After they all reformated, I told my friend to format his USB extrenal HDDs. He told me it would be fine, but now, they're spending Christmas fixing their comp... Viruses can easily travel to external dirves and through networks.

EDIT: ZoneAlarm alone probably wont be enough. You should get Adware SE, Spybot Search and Destroy and CCleaner. If you have those, well, give it a shot. It shouldn't be all that much a problem.

 

Here's a list of programs I use to defend against virus or maintain the system:

Zone Alarm
Spybot S&D
Ad Aware
Spyware Doctor
Registry Mechanic
Spyware Blaster
System Mechanic
CCleaner

I really need the stuff that I stored on the USB (they are all word documents). Should I install anything else if I’m going to try this?

 

I use

-Lavasoft Adware SE
-Microsoft Anti-Spyware
-EZ Anti-Virus (Supposedly what MS uses on their PC's, free one year trial)
-Router Firewall
-Windows Firewall

and safe downloading aswell as browsing habits.

 

There's an even easier way. Download a linux live CD, reboot into it, and plug in the thumb drive. Mount it and burn the files you need to a CD then format the thumb drive. This is good because
A. most virii that you would pick up from a windows machine don't work under the penguine
B. most live CD's mount your hard drives as read only (more so if their ntfs) so that even if the virus was capable of running under linux, it still couldn't do any damage.

Cheers for linux

band-aid

 

Thanks for the replies guys!

Is there a chance that the virus might attach itself to the word document (macros maybe?). I'm terribly unfamiliar with virus/spyware.... I know coping to Notepad, then burning them to a CD would eliminate any viruses, but that would take a long time and mess up my formatting (I have about 150-200 word/excel documents on there for school).

 

I did some reading on the internet and some people said disabling the autorun would stop some viruses. Is this true? If so, how do I actually disable this feature? Disabling it in the powertoy TweakUI doesn't actually work does it?

 

Norton pre-installed with the rest of this bloatware ftmfw

 

If I scan a computer w/ ZA, Spyware Doctor, Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, and MS Defender and none of them were able to find anything, does that mean my comp is virus/spyware free? or should I run some other program(s) to be sure?

 

I am using:
AVG Professional 7.5
Lavasoft Ad-aware
CCleaner
The Ad-aware protect my register and unsigned software
AVG for virus and CCLeaner for maintain a healthy laptop
You have to update the antivirus daily to made the best of it. If you scan with all the program above and cant find anything then the chance you are infected is very low, or the virus dont active, dont do any damage to your system.
The autorun feature can be disable by chosing dont do anything when you 1st insert the USB, tick the alway do this action box and everytime you insert the USB it wont do anything. I think the autorun dont made the virus work. If the virus work as soon as you insert the USB then the antivirus will kick in and deleted it.
Just remember to scan the USB everytime you insert it to your laptop.