2021-04-05 01:27:57

hay guys, so I was like having 100 CPU glitching and 90 percent ram being used. I checked and opened task mannager to find this thing called zcomhl.exe. wow, so I googled it up, found that it's a coinminer. so I then killed all the processes and my CPU began to go down by like 80 percent or so. so I was like wow, so it kame from the app data folder? and windows is starting it? that's just crazy. I am just about to remove the exe inside the appdata folder right now. anyone encountered similar viruses before?

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2021-04-05 02:26:44

No, I wonder why...

Please don't tell me you went and did something sketchy. And if you did, let this serve as a lesson I suppose.

If you for whatever reason wish to contact me, the best way to do so is through Discord (Minionslayer#2980). You'll get the quickest response times, and by extension, a higher priority. I also sometimes post my thoughts (for the better or worse) over on Twitter at @Minionslayer2.

2021-04-05 03:04:20

Honestly, just because you removed it manually doesn't mean it's necessarily gone. Viruses these days are usually more involved than that. You might get lucky, but I wouldn't bet on that. Instead, get an accessible antivirus like Malwarebites even if you normally don't use one, let it scan your PC and delete what it needs to, then continue, keeping what @2 said in mind.

2021-04-05 03:06:58

You make a deal with the devil; you should be prepared for the unexpected.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
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End division
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2021-04-05 03:39:03

This is why I think that people who choose not to go with antivirus software are ignorant. Common sense is not a failsafe against malicious tools anymore. The idea of "Oh, if I use common sense, I won't get hacked or any viruses on my computer" is laughable and has been for at least two decades now. People who don't use any AV software are just setting up an even more tempting target for malicious actors, but hey, if you want yourself to get infected one of these days, you go ahead and do that.
As 2 and 3 said, viruses are far sneakier than an executable file. Let an AV program scan your computer -- and by god, keep the scanner around permanently. Buy a Malwarebytes subscription and let it run silently in the background. If you'd done that before this happened, I'm pretty positive it wouldn't have ever happened to begin with.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2021-04-05 04:28:18

I've heard the exact oposit from litterally everyone @5. Using anti-virus should be a last line of defence, if you don't be stupid and click on things like win free $25 visa giftcard from your e-mail, etc. Saying ommon sense is useless and has been for 2 decades, is honestly more ignerent that saying to not use built-in anti-virus, especially sense a lot of those want you to use their secure search engine, or their home page, or build things into all of your programs like Chrome, etc. One of the reasons i stick with defender. It starts with windows, it's easy to use, straight forward notifications, common definition updates, etc. etc.

2021-04-05 04:37:02

Common sense tells you to close and lock your house door to secure it. Home security is used when someone breaks your window or bashes your door down. Both are good to have. Can you get away with just a locked door? Perhaps if you're in the right place. Same could be said with anti-virus for a time and if you don't use the internet. But anti-virus is the next thing you need. Yes it's better not to get the virous at all and common sense will help you there but it's not full proof. You could say that your anti-virus isn't 100% full proof either but wouldn't you want a gun in a gun fight?

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2021-04-05 04:43:32

OK so the whole idea of this guy doing  something sketchy is unfounded. You don't need to do something like that to get this virus. Sure common sense is a must have, and without common sense  antivirus can only do so much, but common sense alone isn't sufficient iether. You may say I won't download that Adobe Flash update, but legit websites get hacked too, and serve up malware. I remember in college there were these spam  e-mails posting to the department list and sending attachments.Sometimes they would get scrubbed by Clamav which they had,  but once a cab file with  a ransomeware .scr file came through, and I know someone who opened it and had to reformat their drive. They trusted the message just because it originated in a department list.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2021-04-05 04:46:17

There are several reasons why people don't use anti viruses.
The problem is that the more viruses become sophisticated, the more false positives there are. Excuse me for not liking it when a program just eats a bunch of executables away because it thinks it's smarter than the user. Granted, it probably is smarter than a lot of average computer users out there, but the choice should always exist from the user's perspective, and more and more antiviruses are becoming so aggressive that they give you very minimal choice, or none at all, or they are totally inaccessible.
MB doesn't fall into this camp because it's probably the best example out there and you can configure it exactly the way you want, but I'm speaking generally here. Common sense still applies very, very often. I have used MB to scan my PC multiple times when I knew exactly what I've done to get infected, but I can also mention years and years of usage where literally nothing happened.
There are exceptions like the famous CCleaner example, but nowadays such things just happen. There are also examples of antivirus companies doing really shady things and far from best security practices to convince you to buy their product, which doesn't mean we can say antiviruses aren't secure.
In the end we can both rant on why you should / don't need to use an antivirus, but this is Windows and the choice is ultimately on the user's side.
There are platforms like Android / Mac / iOS where you in fact don't need an antivirus at all, yet such hacks happen there too, bad actors manage to slip in through the review processes.
What you should absolutely be doing, no questions asked is having a regular backup of all the data you consider important, especially if you don't have an antivirus. Ransomware can always screw you up, and if you don't have a backup, who knows what you can lose.
Fortunately even Windows itself now offers multiple layers of protection against this kind of thing, noticing multiple files getting deleted quickly or being modified will trigger that something might not be ok and give you a notification.
Common sense still plays a huge role. It doesn't mean you're 100 percent safe, but neither does having an antivirus. Often, if you are targetted by a very new threat, chances are it can slip by the protection. Granted, with newer logic that most antiviruses nowadays employ such  chances are drastically reduced, but they still very much exist.
Or, you know, a system exploit. Keeping your system up to date is probably even more important than having an antivirus.

2021-04-05 05:13:29 (edited by Ethin 2021-04-05 05:14:40)

@6-9, again, a good antivirus solution is pretty much a requirement for modern computer usage. Common sense is no longer enough on its own, and its ignorant to claim that it is, and people who tell others that it is are also ignorant. There are tons and tons of different kinds of viruses out there. Whenever a new virus is created, AV companies are usually right behind them and have an update for the database definitions within a few days. Failing to use an AV tool just because nothing happens to you, or because someone told you "Just use common sense," is stupid. Viruses come in so many forms nowadays that identifying them via human assessment is not an option for various reasons.
@9, the reason AV programs are so aggressive is because viruses -- or potential ones -- need to get erased as fast as possible these days. Viruses tend to act very quickly once implanted on a users machine, so there is no time to say "Oh, I'll just wait a few weeks on this program to see what it does". By the time those few weeks are up, your computer could already be finished. Similarly, AV programs have things like anti-tamper protection because viruses can search for them and more often than not they try to disable them. That's the precise reason I refuse to run BGT games: I refuse to open up a potential hole in my AV defenses to allow an infected program to slip into an excluded folder.
AV programs often have other benefits, e.g.: if the OP had something like MB installed, it wouldn't have even allowed this file to be downloaded. AV programs often utilize web databases to prevent network connections to potentially infected domains. And that doesn't apply to web browsers alone, either: it applies to any outbound network connection.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2021-04-05 05:28:02

Look y'all, I promise you that if you just be careful, and essentially don't be stupid, you can avoid pretty much any malware. Yes, there are going to be those one in a thousand chances where something may come up, but honestly, if you actually think about where you are going, and what you are downloading, you should be alright. Now as far as anti-virus software goes, I do believe it can come in handy, but I do not keep it installed. For example, I have the installer for malwarebites on my drive, but I do not keep it installed all the time. This is mainly because I have found that when it is installed, it takes up too many resources. This is the same for things like McAffee and Norton. So when I think I do have something fishy going on with my system, I quickly install malwarebites, let it do its thing, and then if everything is clear, then it gets uninstalled and waits for next time. To this day I have never had a problem. And the other problem I will point out with a lot of antivirus software I have used is that it will often try to claim certain safe files as viruses. I have this happen all the time. It is honestly really annoying. So if you do go and use antivirus software and it is your first time, just know that things like that can happen. Just because the program calls it a virus, it doesn't mean that it actually is. Again, that is where common sense can come into play.

It seems that common sense is a lost art. I am here as a special type of artist to bring that beauty back. If you don't like my work, prove that yours is better. Paint me a beautiful picture of life. Otherwise, I have no interest.

2021-04-05 05:33:19

9, the solution for that type of situation is actually  to disable automatic actions. Defender lets you do it in group policy where it will lock the file and let you choose actions for any detection. And you can exclude all your audiogames folder where you know the games you download are pretty likely safe.
As for database updates, actually with cloud defenitions, antiviruses can get updates in seconds/minutes rather than days. Though I really think MS should use defender's dedicated  update rather than pushing the updates through windows update, and the 24 hour update interval is probably too long with most other AVS doing it every couple hours.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2021-04-05 05:43:32

AV programs are too aggressive, are too deeply integrated into the system, are too hard to remove. For that, they give many false positives, exist in many forms of accessibility ranging from not at all to just about usable, are an expense you have to maintain, don't do a good job of removal if a virus already existed at the time of installation. Just avoid doing stupid shit and you'll be fine in most cases. Most, not all, but most. If you get something, you'll probably be in trouble.

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End racism
End division
Become united

2021-04-05 06:13:48

Hello,
@op, I feel like your probably gonna have to take the computer into safe mode and try doing a scan in windows defender, or download and install an antivirus solution. That'd probably work better anyway. Maybe. Since you say your computer's still functional, this should work.
It doesn't take a CCNA to realize the importance of some kind of antivirus solution, even if that solution is manually scanning a file you download.
It also doesn't take a CCNA to realize just how clever malware is getting. With every new evolution in the it world, somebody's already found 99 ways to break it.
All this just to say. Please do your part. If the little voice in your head is telling you something's off about a file, you probably shouldn't even allow it on your computer.
Personally here, I use malwarebytes. I think the two year subscription is like $40? Mb tends to be nicer on system resources as compared to defender, Windows defender will work, if you have nothing else.
Re exclusions. I get it, I know why they were added, but it's quite honestly a terrible idea in today's day and age. With every exclusion you add you may as well be opening random ports on your firewall, because sooner or later, something you download and place there won't care you thought it was ultra death squad that turned out to be a bitcoin miner.
I get that not everyone likes giving up system resources to a virus scan. Allow me to ask you this in return. Would you instead prefer to give up your system resources to somebody who's installed a backdoor into your computer?
Malware bytes at least, I'm pretty sure defender does too, allows you to schedule reoccurring scans. I know Mb will actively try not to perform a scan if it detects your using the computer for heavy workloads like gaming.
And sure, it does sometimes get in my way, but it's almost always bgt games. Either that or adware (thanks softonic).
That said. Antivirus solutions won't always stop you from catching malware on their own. 99 percent of the time they will, the other 1 percent has to come from you the user.
I sincerely hope this experience has taught you a valuable lesson for the future.
Best,
Omar.

2021-04-05 07:15:23 (edited by Ethin 2021-04-05 07:15:36)

@14, I've been using MB for at least 3 years and its hardly ever gotten in my way, and I appreciate that. It does its thing and I don't even realize it. That's what a good AV should do.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2021-04-05 07:46:19

file exclusions are a necesary tool.If I  determine a file is likely safe, like BGT executibles, or intentionally flagged to stop people using it, like hack tools, I see nothing wrong with allowing it. There is minimal to no risk.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2021-04-05 16:12:34

@ethin how is it not an option, when it clearly is? Microsoft clearly believes otherwise. In fact, I actually don't know why this is allowed, but you don't even have to do anything advanced like going through group policies to disable Windows defender. For some reason, you can just add the entire C drive as an exclusion and it doesn't care about it, nor will it ever warn you. Don't do this by the way, it's a bad idea, I'm just saying that it's possible.

2021-04-05 17:55:13

@17, just because a program lets you do something doesn't mean you should. That's why I said its not an option. Its a horrendous idea.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2021-04-05 18:00:47

@nidza07: Microsoft is more of a data company than it ever was in the before times. Sure, they have a metric crap-ton more integrity in the ethics department than Facebook ever will, but look at it this way. Pre-Windows 10, Microsoft had a you get what you get, be grateful we even gave you something kind of mindset when making operating systems. Updates were passive, and Windows Offender was a complete joke (it didn't even arrive till Windows 7 for crying out loud). But now Microsoft makes an operating system that is dynamically changing, which has multiple motives. One because they've gotten a hell of a lot more benevolent over the past few years, and two because they are now part of ad-tech, like it or not. Of course they'll say Windows Defender is the best option, because they want you to feed them your metrics. They even went as far as making your pc take a shit during a Windows update if there were third party antiviruses on your computer, which I believe they have since stopped doing after rightfully getting a lot of shit for it. Speaking of which, I need to get Malware Bites again at some point.
Back to the original point of the topic, if you can't afford an antivirus then at least have Defender do a dep scan. It's actually quite good if you let it run, but it will take up many system resources - even on a powerful computer, so it's best to let that run overnight. Nothing wrong with leaving your system wide open and on overnight, probably better for temperature control that way since they're all booting up for updates while the friggin lid is closed anyway. AS for comon sense, common sense also means using a privacy-focused browser ike Brave, or Firefox with noscript. Any browser that prevents clickjacking. using a fido2 security key. And honestly if an antivirus is taking up your system resources even while doing a passive scan, it's called get a better machine. Eight gb of ram is an absolute minimum nowadays, and a simple duel core cpu isn't gonna cut it anymore.
ON another note, Blue-Eyed Demon's post segued right into his signature.

Blue-Eyed Demon wrote:

Again, that is where common sense can come into play.
It seems that common sense is a lost art. I am here as a special type of artist to bring that beauty back. If you don't like my work, prove that yours is better. Paint me a beautiful picture of life. Otherwise, I have no interest.

2021-04-05 18:45:04

@jack:

Wait, what? When was the whole MS having Windows machines throw a shit fit if they detected third party AV? I think I missed that one...

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2021-04-05 18:56:15

It was a while back and I think it was a bug more than anything, but it coincided with the accept no substitutes narrative Microsoft was pushing about Defender.

2021-04-05 18:57:42

A really old Windows 10 case. The issue is long gone, but the fact is it did happen and it made folks a bit more paranoid about installing third party antiviruses for a while.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win … 56ace18fb9

2021-04-05 19:31:45

Just...lol at that article. MS really, really didn't want you to use any thir party software four years ago...just wow

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2021-04-05 19:34:15

This was also at around the time that MS was having a big ol' party with the data trove they now had access to.

2021-04-06 02:02:12

Ok so about antiviruses, I still think a way to perminently disable one should exist. There are legit  reasons why  someone would want one disabled. Windows pro is really good with this with group policy, practically allowing you to control every aspect of defender.
As  for computers, guys I can't stress this enough. Ram 16 gb should be minimum. My pc is using 5-6 gb, even more than that with very few things open because MS keeps spliting out more processes, increasing ram for more performance, which is fine since ram is relatively cheap. I went with 32g, 2x16 sticks because the higher capacity rams have a higher  number of banks, and runs at a lower latency, and also to future proof this machine  so ram upgrades won't be needed anytime in the recent future. Also, since it has an AMD ryzen 8 core, when you use shit like 7-zip you compress with 16 threads, which really eats up ram.
For processor I would say something higher than a 4 core is ideal, and a dual core is inadequate.  With a 4 core screen reader lag can be still noticeable with demanding tasks.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."