Bitcoin Forum

Just an hour ago I started noticing my second PC losing internet access(PC 1 was the one infected) for some reason, I am using ICS on a brand new computer, which I purchased just yesterday for home use(no mining). This means my HDD was formatted clean.

And today, I notice it was infected by a bitcoin miner considering the fact I visited no Bitcoin related websites AT ALL!!. The only things I did download was a bunch of software(yeah, pirate software).

The process was disguised as svcchost.exe running under your account, not System. Too bad I failed to realize I needed to disassemble and find the account and ban the guy.

Learn to use a computer?

It could happen to anyone.

Don't pirate software?  ;)

I've been using computers for a while now, and I consider myself above a Power user, at least. But I could not have predicted this could happen to me a day after I bought a brand new computer.

100x this.

Don't misunderstand, I am all for buying legit software the legit way, however, money is required for this. Money which I don't have to spend.

Maybe predicting how soon after getting the new computer you would go putting pirate stuff on it might have helped improve the predictability?

As it seems more likely related to the piracy than to the purchase of the computer?

-MarkM-

Let's just say I thought that it was a 1 in 50 thousand chance I get infected by a miner.

No.  It couldn't.  You have to take action to get infected, unless a secret agent broke in and infected it while you were out.

OP is an idiot.

I'm just going to throw this out there. Hackers get viruses, so do government workers, so do regular people, and I'm sure even HAL-9000 would get a virus every  now and again. You know, before he systematically annihilated it through his advanced AI powered antivirus software.

This wasn't caused by the miner, it was because of all the pirated software you got on the new computer.  ::)

Actually, that may not be the case. I own a legal(purchased) copy of Minecraft since Alpha days. Upon installing it today I noticed it had no sound(installed from official servers obviously).
I went on to search for a fix and noticed this blog post http://www.tobys.dk/blog/minecraft-no-sound-fix/

It links to OpenAL(no idea if from the official website). Upon scanning my computer it showed the OpenAL folder(and many other in the Windows folder) as containing the virus. I've posted a comment on the blog mentioning this (in all caps).

Log: http://pastebin.com/D56q6NWL

Not at all: http://www.osalt.com/

Well, I'm not saying you got it from pirated software but it's very possible. It is known that many people who upload (or re-upload) those pirated softwares, will put something extra in there, viruses for example.

Sorry for the off-topic question, but I'd like an answer.

I am curious. Do those who don't believe in pirating software believe in pirating movies? This question only really applies to those who believe pirating software is not good because they believe the developers deserve compensation as opposed to those who believe pirating software is not good because it compromises security.

You haven't checked warez with antivirus before running it? This is a rule number one.

+1. First step before any secondary installs is to activate security measures. In the windows world anyway. Second rule, if you don't trust a software, don't run it as your user - use a separate account without privileges. Simple, yet effective. If you're paranoid use a virtual machine for unsafe stuff.