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I just got a virus - now will people know my passwords?

P

powwka

Banned
I was trying to download a CD key for 3DMark06 (I now have learned my lesson), and I got a virus/spyware instead. It was one of those that tries to get you to download antivirus stuff.

Since I'm getting a new computer in a couple days, I just reformatted. But what I'm wondering is if people now have my passwords. Because a couple months ago somebody somehow got my password and tried taking $500 out of my PayPal account, and now I'm paranoid. So what do you think? Do I need to change my passwords?
 
How long did you have the virus for before it was cleaned? If you downloaded the file, got the virus, but cleaned it immediately, then you're fine. But if you had it for a few days or longer, and during that time you had access secure sites like that, then maybe. What kind of virus was it too?
 
Originally posted by: Looney
How long did you have the virus for before it was cleaned? If you downloaded the file, got the virus, but cleaned it immediately, then you're fine. But if you had it for a few days or longer, and during that time you had access secure sites like that, then maybe. What kind of virus was it too?
Click to expand...

I had it for about 15 minutes. I started running Norton AV scan (I had autoprotect enabled), but it wasn't picking anything up so I stopped it. I knew that I would end up spending several hours manually removing it, so I just reformatted. I'm not sure which virus it was. Maybe it was just spyware, I don't even really know the difference. It was an .exe file though, so I think it was a virus.

And I don't think I logged in to anything before I reformatted, but I did use IE to see if it changed my homepage (it did). I guess I'll change my passwords just to be safe.
 
Naw, you're safe then. But it's always a good idea to change your password frequently anyways.

Anyways, dump NAV, and get Kaspersky. There's lots of threads here in the forum about it, and there's a 1 month trial on atm. NAV is not only so damn bloated, it really isn't that great at scanning (read the sticked security thread at the top of this forum). I was just fixing a computer 2 weeks ago that had McAfee, and it had a boot sector virus that McAfee didn't pick up. I then used Norton to scan it (i had norton ghost, which included a norton scanner), and it didn't pick it up either. Then by chance i decided to run F-Prot, and that found it (but couldn't clean it... long story i don't want to get into). I decided to take out the harddrive and hook it up to my laptop which had Kaspersky 5 on it, scanned and cleaned the drive without any problems.
 
I would still change them...
viruses can access your cookies, any saved password you have on your computer (and email accounts/paypal account names), easily find the administrator password (if you have that set up)..
 
I say change them. You should be changing them every month or so anyway, so might as well do it now.
 
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