How did a Trojan get on my computer?

Question

I have macafee virus protection. It did its normal weekly scan and found a trojan, which i then deleted. However why didnt macafee stop it in the first place? Also how did i pick up trojan- have not opened any attatchments or downloaded anything

Answer 1

You must be very carefull with every website that you open, and every email that you open. You see, your anti-virus program can only do so much. Your BRAIN has to do the rest.

You will be safer if you get FireFox and use that for general surfing. Visit http://www.mozilla.com

Run anti-spyware scans. I recommend that you go to http://www.download.com and get AD-AWARE and SpyBot Search & Destory. Install, run, update and scan your computer with both programs.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Answer 2

I have found some virus clients pick up some things that other things don't. You will never find an 'all-in-one' virus solution. You are best running something like Mcafee and being very cautious of what you open.

Chances are you ran a program either by opening it through your browser or downloading something that was from a shady source and it placed the virus on your system

Think about what you have installed since your last scan and it will probably help narrow down the culprit.

Answer 3

no virus scanner protects your computer 100% of the time. some virus and trojan writers are very clever and know how to get past them.

get a router with a builtin firewall. this will stop viruses, trojans, spyware, adware from ever getting on to your computer. routers have their own ip number. it hides your computers ip number from hackers.

firewalls that are installed on your hard drive can only deal with these things after they end up on your computer.

you should have a two-way firewall on your hard drive. these stop programs from contacting their owner like realplayer does for the purpose of spying on you. zonealarm and windows live one are two-way firewall. maybe mcafee is to but i'm not certain. you'll have to reasearch theat yourself

use both the router firewall and the hard drive firewall at the same time.

if a certain app won't work while the firewalls are running don't panic. all you have to do is open each firewall and look for the EXCEPTIONS LIST. click on the item in there that you want the firewall to ignore so it will work for you

Answer 4

You don't have to download anything to get a trojan. You can get it just by simply visiting some websites. Be careful which websites you visit. Make sure you regularly update Macafee to get the latest definitions. You should do it at least weekly.

Chuck
http://www.ebusinesswiz.com

Answer 5

Hi the reason they are called trojans is because can make anti virus and firewalls believe they are legitimate programmes, it's not until you reboot your computer that they spring into life.
It also depends on what sites you go to as the writers of these programmes are getting crafty and devious, it's a problem that unfortunately will not go away.

Hope this helps a bit. Stay lucky

Answer 6

You don't always have to open an attachment to get a trojan, sometimes you can get a trojan by visiting some game sites, or other sites that may have pop ups. So, really, at this point, you could have gotten the trojan from any site you've been to.

Answer 7

Anti-Virus doesnt get rid of spywares,adwares,trojans.In fact, The best way to get rid of spywares,adwares and trojans is using a best anti-spyware to protect your computer.You must have 1 or 2 antispyware on your pc to protect your computer.Of course there are many solutions exist, all of them with their own strengths and weaknesses.So which anti-spyware is the most suited for your system? You can find out by reading in-depth reviews and comparisons of TOP 5 anti-spywares... some really great tips and links to Spyware removal programs.

Top 5 anti-spywares reviews,comparisons and download links on

http://www.spyware-detectors.net

You can download and scan your PC for free.

Good luck!

Answer 8

someone else could just have put it on your PC, some hackers are good in what they do..

there are a couple of posibillities why Macafee didn't find the virus beforfe:

1) the virus was only placed on your pc, but didnot run
2)Macafee didn't know about this virus untill the last update.

Answer 9

well trojans can still get through firewalls, just not as often, is your macafee virus protection also a firewall? because if its just virus protection than its not a fire wall it will not stop stuff

Answer 10

Virus protection doesnt get rid of all malware! Spyware, adware, trojans, and hijackers wont be seen by antivirus sotware! As a matter of fact, your spyware probably doesnt even come close to protecting you from all viruses! Common sense is the best protection! You get malware from freeware downloads, file sharing sites, porn sites, and e mail attachments.