Only virus I ever got was pespaces back in the 95 days it was a hard mess to clean up mainly because it infected every single exe file and broke a lot of them.
Kinda remember cleaning it up from a dos floppy then once clean basically reinstalling every broken program one at a time.
In hindsight I should have just done a fresh install but I was new to computers.
I sat down on my first day at a new job as senior admin. My boss hadn’t even arrived yet and I had no access. Someone walks up and asks “Hey, a bunch of our files are garbled, can you take a look?”
Fourth infection in a year. That was the start of my worst job ever.
God, I remember how when I was like 8 years old I infected the home computer with a super annoying Adware.
I have no idea how it got in, if I was just hanging out on the Cartoon Network site playing games, but it happened, it was horrible. Every time I turned on the computer it played a video of a woman talking in a strange language and advertising something I don’t remember what it was. I think in the end they had to format the hard drive, that’s how insidious that shit was.
Another vaguely related event is when I supposedly messed up my mother’s first laptop by downloading music from Ares. I say “supposedly” because I doubt it was because of that, but because I was taking a bath while I was handling it. My mother loves to talk about it every time she hears the phrase “Computer Virus”.
I don’t think I’ve had any particularly bad ones. In fact I don’t remember having any since my age was in the single digits tbh. The only time I remember having malware was once when I tried to install iTunes on Windows for some reason, and I got infected with some kind of malware from trying to download this. I don’t remember what exactly it did—I think it was just adware that interacted with your browser, nothing too crazy. I think I may have done a fresh install or factory reset to get rid of it. I was really young at the time and I don’t recall getting malware since. I’ve definitely never (consciously) experienced malware on Linux, yet. (I say consciously cause for all I know maybe someone’s bugged me with a keylogger I’ve not detected idk. Hope not!)
So grandpa had a computer problem. Turns out he installed one of the early locker trojans. He: “It’s all my own fault.” Family: “no grandpa, that were some ugly hackers”. So i removed the virus and checked the computer. Turns out it was his fault. He tried to watch “russian removed porn” and installed the virus in that process. He was like 85 and needed help washing himself. So IDK what his intentions were… The worst part: I had to keep a straight face and confirm the “hackers” therory. That secret will die with me. And now you.
Downloaded a sketchy copy of some hard to find software some years ago. Once I tried to run it, I immediately noticed that the fans started spinning fast and everything was much slower. A quick ctrl + shift + esc and I saw that CPU usage was over 90% - Checking the detailed processes, I found the executable I tried to run and force-stopped it. It almost immediately restarted itself. Obviously, it already set up some other process to check for that process, so I started killing other processes with unfamiliar names until said process stopped restarting.
All good thus far, I went to check %appdata% and of course, there was a sketchy executable there that ran the keepalive process. Deleted it, searched all over for similarly named executables, everything seemed clear. Turned off the internet, rebooted the PC. Turned the internet back on and everything was still fine. I did notice later that I suffered some damage in the form of some files getting encrypted, which was why the CPU usage shot up in the first place - it was one of those ransomware type that, once finished, would no doubt sell the encryption password for a bitcoin deposit.
My other experience with malware was on Android. It’s amazing the lengths some FUCKING HARDWARE VENDORS will go in order to install adware on everything, right, Xiaomi, Samsung? Seriously, being forced to see an ad when you just want to use the fucking calculator? Fuck that shit.
Got something installed in the earlier days of the web that would hijack the screen. I was able to identify the process in the task manager and delete it before it could replicate again
I’ve got an I LOVE YOU virus once on a Panasonic X700 fliphone. And, since it was an already old phone by that time, no one had the right tools to fix it anymore.
That phone was just like a Nokia, btw. Exact same Symbian OS, just with different media files and branding. (or at least, it looked like, so much so it hurt my young brain at the time)
There were photos of F1 cars on it by default. And a mini golf game that was awesome.
I was so sad when that phone got bricked. I don’t even tell you guys how I got that virus since it’s so embarrassing 😅
Also I almost got a ransomware on a freshly installed PC. I was lucky enough to notice something was wrong and I was able to stop it. Though, lots of folders have been infected (files have been created - the message that should have been displayed inside the virus’s windows I assume) and some files did get encrypted - but not deleted…
Nothing major, just lots and lots of browser toolbars in the XP era and contact with some trojans (especially on torrents) that were thankfully caught by the antiviruses available back then.
Wanted to duplicate my items in D2 (I was young). Instead the file I was instructed to try made me drop all of my items. Jokes on them though, my gear was trash at the time.