Question What is the scariest moment in security in your life?

[cartaphilus]

For me was around 2002. My father in law was sleeping in the living room where the pcs were located and the computers were running their biweekly AV scheduled scan. It was slow spinners HDs and the AV was the early Kaspersky. At that time whenever malware was detected it would alert via a loud pig squeel. Well I had a 5.1 surround sound hooked up to the PC since I was using it as a media PC and at around 3 am my father in law wakes up to a gut wrenching pig squeel! Haha I was using kaza and limewire at that time so download infections were common and download speed took most of the night.

 

[Trident]

Yeah, I remember this pig squeal.

I always used to like horror movies as a kid and used to watch them alone, with 5.1 system connected to my PC. I remember watching a movie called Otoshimono/Ghost Train when Kaspersky 6 found malware and squealed. It was a traumatic experience indeed.

I remember my mum beating me with that stick for the dough when I first broke my Windows OS (it was about a month after my PC was bought). I learned to reinstall Windows after. I had disabled all Windows services from msconfig and the pc had no sound, no themes, nothing.

Another traumatic experience was the Zlob trojan infection. This trojan replaced my desktop background with a bio-hazard, installed a fake AV called Ultimate Defender and displayed alerts every few seconds, saying that someone is trying to send me a virus.

 

[plat]

Back when I first started out w/Windows 8.1, I had disabled Windows Defender and had no other resident antivirus--just HitmanPro.Alert and VoodooShield. Well apparently Windows didn't like having its core components disabled for very long it seems and gradually it became time to reinstall the operating system due to copious errors and other stuff.

To this day, I don't understand how Alert was able to stay on the system but I didn't know at first. As soon as the new installation reached the desktop, I went ahead and opened Internet Explorer without waiting for all them thar updates (180+) to finish installing. BOOM. Flash player was exploited. BOOM. HitmanPro.Alert blocks the exploit and payload like there was no problem. My system turned out to be clean but my nerves were rattled for a bit.

Back to using antivirus after that. And installing Windows 10 afterward.

 

[fabiobr]

Avast sound: the bigger alarm sound of a virus detection and later on the definitions update human voice sound.

 

[Zero Knowledge]

I'd say the funniest thing (and stupidest) happened about 20 years ago. I used to download pirated Vst's music apps and programs (FruityLoops, Cubase etc) about 20 years ago when I use to produce music. I didn't know anything about malware or malicious software, I'm sure I was infected about 1 million times, but the I remember people I gave the music apps/Vst's too rendering their computers useless and unworkable to the point they took their PCs into repair workshop to get fixed. At the time we thought it was everything but malware because we didn't know, stupid and naive but you live and learn and grow up and realize nothing is ever free.

Scariest? Too many to count. Won't go into them, I'll probably give people nightmares .

 

[Oldie1950]

It was a few years ago that a new system (IBAN) was introduced for bank payments. On a Sunday afternoon I received an e-mail in which I was asked to submit all bank and credit card details with passwords so that the conversion to IBAN can be carried out. After a long lunch with a few glasses of wine my brain probably didn't have that good blood supply anymore, so I clicked on the link in the e-mail, entered the data and sent it off. Seconds after I did that, it hit me like lightning and I realized what a fool I had done. I immediately changed all passwords. After a few weeks, I find out that a stranger had tried to log into one of my accounts. Since it didn't work, he tried to set up a new password himself. Of course, I didn't confirm the email that asked me to confirm the change. So I got out of it unscathed. That never happened to me again after that. To this day I still cannot understand how I could have made this mistake.

 

[WhiteMouse]

Same with OP

 

[mlnevese]

I miss Kaspersky's pig and Avast's update notice. I vote they return immediately

Never had something scary happen. Annoying yes, such as the University computer I was using stopping booting because of a boot virus back in the 90s when I needed to use it...

 

[Chuck57]

Way back in 1997 or '98, I'd been inspecting a pirate software site, and downloaded something or other, I think an antivirus. Well, got it downloaded (finally, at 33.6 speed) and installed it. Not too long afterward, I wanted to add more RAM, so took it to a local shop. I hadn't a clue what RAM was except that the more the better. The guy in the shop added a stick, doubling it and gave the machine a once over, and found IAmBigBrother hiding somewhere on the drive. The computer was fairly a fairly new Compaq, and I seriously doubt it came from the factory with a keylogger installed. Neither do I know if the keylogger came with the pirated software, but I dumped it that day.

 

[cartaphilus]

Avast sound: the bigger alarm sound of a virus detection and later on the definitions update human voice sound.

Now that's an idea. Each time a virus is detected, you hear the giggling of young children. It works exceptionally well when you perform night scans and have no children in the house. Nothing sounds more fun than hearing children giggling at 3 am while knowing you don't have kids.

 

[Chuck57]

Just thought of something even more frightening than my previous post. Many years ago, probably in the late 1990s, there was a great little piece of software called Tiny Firewall. I used it, not having a clue what it did. Later it improved to Tiny Firewall version 4 that had all sorts of very simple ways to adjust it to make it more secure, mostly by just clicking on boxes. Simple and easy. Well, genius that I am, I checked boxes left and right. Not a clue what they did, but by golly my computer was going to be absolutely secure. And it was. After shutting down for the night, I turned it on next day and couldn't get to my desktop. I'd locked myself out of my own computer. It proved Tiny v4 worked. I spent hours trying to find a way to get to the desktop. Even safe mode didn't work. I was locked out.

Fortunately, I had all the floppy disks to reinstall the OS, either Win 95 or 98, and that worked. I did not reinstall Tiny firewall.

 

[amirr]

Same with OP

oh, this made me cry. Thanks for posting this.

 

[Shadowra]

My memories?
Kaspersky with the pig (I almost died)
Avast with the nuclear sound worthy of an intrusion at SpaceX xD



It was much better when Avast started using its "Ding Ding Ding"

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

I used a data syncing program in stead of a backup program which stored file version in AddData User folders (syncback free compares an original and a backup copy just before it does a backup/synchronize/image copy) . I did not know that program (forgot its name) did store a file version index in the AppData User folder.

After trying out a security program, I decided to rollback to a previous image. Then when I backup holiday pictures to my shock and awe I noticed that the syncing program was deleting files because I restored an older version of its file version index (because of the image recovery). All photo's taken with a camera were lost from our 5 week india Holiday.

Happy wife, happy life was at arctic temperatures for around a week. I managed to recover 2/3 of the deleted images with a image recovery program I bought. I immediately de-installed that syncing program and replaced it with Syncback free. I also keep 2 USB disk copies since that disaster.

I think it was in 2015 when it happened.

 

[Trident]

Kaspersky with the pig (I almost died)

Before this thread I thought I was the only one terrified from this pig… the pig sound was accompanied by one huge notification (1/3 of the screen) that included loads of technical details and had 2 arrows like this
-> Proceed With Advanced Disinfection (Computer Restart Needed
-> Disinfect Without Restart

(I am pulling this from my memory so it is probably not 100% the same).

I am surprised to see now how many people have been terrified and wonder who took the decision to include these sounds

They’ve been so much out of place and unnecessary. Same goes for Avast with their SpaceX sounds, nuclear signs and player interface. So lame.

On the good side, what gave me the fire to deal with malware and security was the Kaspersky’s back then VirusList (now securelist) and later on the Symantec research site. I’ve spent whole nights reading there.

 

[mlnevese]

I would love to see one of those YouTube videos that throw 1000 samples at a product if those sounds were still used

 

[fabiobr]

Before this thread I thought I was the only one terrified from this pig… the pig sound was accompanied by one huge notification (1/3 of the screen) that included loads of technical details and had 2 arrows like this
-> Proceed With Advanced Disinfection (Computer Restart Needed
-> Disinfect Without Restart

(I am pulling this from my memory so it is probably not 100% the same).

I am surprised to see now how many people have been terrified and wonder who took the decision to include these sounds

They’ve been so much out of place and unnecessary. Same goes for Avast with their SpaceX sounds, nuclear signs and player interface. So lame.

On the good side, what gave me the fire to deal with malware and security was the Kaspersky’s back then VirusList (now securelist) and later on the Symantec research site. I’ve spent whole nights reading there.

Symantec always had a great malware research and blog about it, it’s a shame that they (Broadcom) closed this

 

[Trident]

Symantec always had a great malware research and blog about it, it’s a shame that they (Broadcom) closed this

They suspended and deleted the malware writeups and I almost cried.
They were of a really high quality compared to others that just use some generic templates, slightly modified.
These writeups however were becoming obsolete as the quality of attribution/naming dropped severely since the introduction of the Static Data Scanner and majority of detections are just Heur.AdvML.B (most frequent, sometimes A and C depending on the confidence).

Various blogs and protection bulletins are still maintained.

Symantec also maintains proper threat intelligence service that offers additional information on threats. It is a paid add-on for SEP.

 

[vokeb]

For me was around 2002. My father in law was sleeping in the living room where the pcs were located and the computers were running their biweekly AV scheduled scan. It was slow spinners HDs and the AV was the early Kaspersky. At that time whenever malware was detected it would alert via a loud pig squeel. Well I had a 5.1 surround sound hooked up to the PC since I was using it as a media PC and at around 3 am my father in law wakes up to a gut wrenching pig squeel! Haha I was using kaza and limewire at that time so download infections were common and download speed took most of the night.

Everytime I have an ransomware or redline stealer infection, can't think of anything more panicking.

 

[roger_m]

Everytime I have an ransomware or redline stealer infection, can't think of anything more panicking.

This has happened multiple times for you?