Free virus scan

[James]

I don't use any anti-virus as I got fed up with it slowing applications down. That may change:

I just used Pandasoft's excellent online virus scanner.

I was horrified at the amount of junk on my computer - most of it has come from Kazaa, which I will now use with caution. It was all trojan and worm stuff, nothing that was going to trash my hard drive, but you never know.

Dare you scan your PC?

http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/co...n_principal.htm (http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm)

I think I will rebuild my hard drive soon and be a good boy from then on.

[francis]

Norton offer the same service (http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck). McAfee used to, but after a (very) quick search of their site, I couldn't find it. What is useful is McAfee's (http://vil.mcafeesecurity.com/vil/content/alert.htm) and Norton's (can't find the link for love or money) virus email alerts which come through when something big like MyDoom or Klez is doing the rounds.

My Norton AV is set to scan my system every Friday night and I also run Ad Aware from time to time. I last ran it a couple of months ago, but out of interest just ran it again. A whopping six cookies were flagged up!

[David]

James - I just got this security alert from Clook:

TITLE:
Kazaa Altnet Download Manager Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

SECUNIA ADVISORY ID:
SA12455

VERIFY ADVISORY:
http://secunia.com/advisories/12455/

CRITICAL:
Highly critical

IMPACT:
System access

WHERE:
>From remote

SOFTWARE:
Kazaa 2.x
http://secunia.com/product/616/

DESCRIPTION:
CelebrityHacker has reported a vulnerability in the Altnet Download
Manager included in Kazaa, which can be exploited by malicious people
to compromise a user's system.

For more information:
SA12446

The vulnerability has been confirmed in Altnet Download Manager
4.0.0.4 included in Kazaa 2.7.1. Other versions may also be affected.

SOLUTION:
Remove the Altnet Download Manager ("adm.exe") or uninstall Kazaa.

PROVIDED AND/OR DISCOVERED BY:
CelebrityHacker

OTHER REFERENCES:
SA12446:
http://secunia.com/advisories/12446/