11.15.2013

November 14, 2013

White Dog was distraught. "You were invaded and the entire White Dog Army failed you!" "Sweet One, there are limits to the protections the Army can provide...as fierce and brave and smart as you all are. Without thumbs keeping my computer safe is just as outside your abilities as my being able to read messages on the fire hydrant."

We were attacked by an insidious malware called BetterSurf. It was Steve's late night at school so we were defenseless. Steve for nearly 20 years was the IT Director at his old architecture firm and our at home systems reflect an expert's understanding of the need for security and protection. And yet here we were with things flying out and popping up and changing our pages.

Trying to post was an impossible task for every word that had a commercial meaning prompted this software to popup with all kinds of alternative sources to purchase dogs, for example. I have chosen to leave the tech stuff to my expert and focus my grey matter on less black magical stuff. I DID try the only trick I know. I rebooted. Turns out the reboot allowed the malware to install itself all over my computer.

This morning (Friday) Steve calmly sat down to do battle. Seems this BetterSurf has everyone at a loss. No protection software yet recognizes it and it seems able to climb through odd network connections to get to you. The chat rooms, according to Steve, are full of IT guys and Developers wondering how this malware manages to even install itself on laptops not turned on. We did learn enough so that Steve could painstakingly read through my applications and files and remove pieces of this evil addition; he found where it had wormed its way into Blogger, and he found the toolbar to remove. There is some question as to whether pieces still lurk but for now at least things SEEM right again.

And now Oso and I can get back to work. Last I saw White Dog, she had one of Steve's reference books on computer security open to the section on Malware and was reading up...hackers and evil script writers beware, there's a new floofy white girl gunning for you!

3 comments:

TimberLove said...

Grrrr! Go away hackers!! Glad woooos go it straightens out.

RA

Tweedles -- that's me said...

that is so scary when stuff happens to computers like that--
we would not have a clue as to what to do..
love
tweedles

Random Felines said...

we will never understand why people who obviously have skills feel the need to create things that hurt others....