Viruses on the phone line

I have a standard non-broadband Internet connection with Eircom. Had it for a few years now. The old computer in the house has seen better days. It's extremely slow and when you attempt to go online boxes pop up all over the place and all sorts of errors occur. This is not a major problem, however, as this computer is very old and I wouldn't expect anything else.

The problem is when I connected to the internet (through the phone line) using a laptop I had similar problems. The laptop became infested with spyware. I thought this may be a problem with the laptop. I then set up a new PC and again when I went online exactly the same problems occured - Spyware infestation. I know very little about this kind of thing so I'm looking for advice.

Is it possible for the actual phone line to become infected with a virus ?? Previously I hadn't thought this possible but I can't think of any other explanation as the only common denominator is the phone line.

Any help appreciated.

Zapatista

You phone line is not infested with a virus. Unprotected machines connecting to the Internet can now on average expect to be infected within 18 minutes of going on line. In some cases even less.

You need to have anti-virus software and anti-spyware software installed on your PC. Also you should have a personal firewall installed. The key post on keeping you PC clean will help you on this.

C

No, it is not possible.

The phoneline is only a conduit through (over) which traffic passes between your machine and the internet.

If you are constantly getting virus infections then you need to consider the nature of the websites and internet resources you are using.

z

scrub the pc again

install the operating system

install Kerio personal firewall (free)

get someone with a BB connection to download a scutch of patches and service packs for your operating system, and burn on a cd for ya. Install all of them from CD .

then its pretty safe to go on line ,

never use internet explorer again , use firefox instead.

chicken and egg problem, to get the patches you must go online and you will be infested before they are downloaded and installed if you are on dialup , get them on cd instead .

Or get a Mac !

Thanks guys but I have to admit a lot of that went over my head. Im an amateur when it comes to computers.

Zag I don't need to consider the nature of the websites used as the only websites I log onto at home are AAM, my banks website and yahoo. Think its fairly safe to assume these sites are innocuous.

The laptop I used has anti-spyware software but nevertheless internet explorer inevitably crashes after first suffering several irritating pop ups informing me that I need to log onto such a site to download such a piece of software. Also when this laptop is used in work using a broadband internet connection no problems occur. This leads me to think that the problem is not with the laptop.

As for the new PC I think the personal firewall and anti-spyware software may remedy the problems.

zapatista - I had to cut the previous post short, but considering the nature of the sites was only going to be one suggestion. If you have considered them and ruled them out as a cause then that's fair enough.

Another possible cause (but pretty unlikely) might be where you get the same IP address (which someone out there is specifically targetting) from eircom everytime you dial, but this is most likely not the case.

I would suggest you use firefox as an alternative to IE - less prone to exploitation.

z

DaveD said:

Or get a Mac !

Click to expand...

A common fallacy. Macs, while not as prone to viruses or attack as more popular/widespread operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, are not magically immune to viruses. See here.

Thanks Zag.

Think you're right about changing from IE. Seems to be nothing but trouble. In a previous job I had I experienced problems with IE on the work PC. So I changed to Mozilla. I remember being fairly happy with it at the time. I don't know much about firefox. How does it compare to IE from a usability point of view ??

Zapa.

Zapatista said:

How does it compare to IE from a usability point of view ?

Click to expand...

Why not just install it and try it out? If you don't like it you can always remove it (unlike IE!). I'd thoroughlt recommend it particularly over IE but be aware, like any application, it's not perfect.

ClubMan said:

A common fallacy. Macs, while not as prone to viruses or attack as more popular/widespread operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, are not magically immune to viruses. See here.

Click to expand...

Hi Clubman,

Don't want to get into the old Mac V Windows thing but the doc you pointed out is 5 years old and relates to an older Mac operating system. I've been working in a mixed Mac/Windows environment for 15 years and I can say with confidence that 99.9% or all virus/worm/security problems have been Windows related. The only Mac virus I've ever encountered was a MS Word (Microsoft again!) macro embedded in a file that came from a PC, harmless to a Mac but detected anyway. This is in a university full of students who have a VERY lax attitude to computer security.

I still say that if you want a computer that you can just use and more or less forget about then get a Mac, OS X is rock solid and hasn't had a virus/worm yet in the 3+ years its been out.

Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion, of course if it clashes with mine its bound to be wrong! ;-)