"BOGUS ALERTS pretending to have been sent from US TV news network CNN are spam that lures wibblers to over 1,000 hacked websites that are pushing fake, malware-infested Flash Player software, Internet security watchdogs have warned."I'm ashamed to admit I was taken in. I was very tired having just watched the double bill of BBC Three's new show, Spooks: Code 9 (commentary soon), I clicked the link in the email, went to the bogus CNN site, clicked the download Flash link and within seconds, my wallpaper had turned blue, there was a scary warning in the middle and I was aperplectic.
I searched the web and found a fix and managed to delete everything it told me too, even entering the registry and deleting things there and though the scary wallpaper went and the wierd processes filled with strings of unfriendly characters were deleted, yet every time I went online, the connection would fire up and I'd be paranoid.
Such is my nerdiness I didn't sleep much last night, but today having spoken to someone with more of clue of what's going on with these computer whatsits than I do -- and searching Google News and discovering it's not just me in this I calmed down, the colliwobbles went and I realised two things:
(1) I bought half a terrabyte on Saturday. I can back up my files.
(2) It's about time I did a cold reinstall of Windows. As I think I indicated the other day, my computer is the digital equivalent of home -- it just keeps gathering stuff.
So that's what I did. Backed up what I needed and reinstalled the XP. Time consuming, but did let me sort out a few things, like removing the useless partition Dell had included and some of the other crapware that was preinstalled and I've never been able to do much with. It's also even faster. Yet it doesn't quite feel the same yet. Give it time.
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