My computer has been infected by a trojan horse. These things can be nasty and annoying. They steal information off your computer and send it back to the person spreading it so that they can use your information. This information can be anything you type; credit card numbers, passwords, etc.

Kind of dumb how I got it. I should have known better. After performing an update on my desktop computer that runs Windows XP, I received a Security Center Alert message stating that there was suspicious software on my computer and I needed to enable protection. So I clicked on the button and downloaded the software that was supposed to be a firewall/virus scanner. Well, it wasn't, it was a trojan. Not sure where the initial suspicious software (the Security Center Alert) came from.

Now I am backing up all my data. It's going to take awhile, I have gigs and gigs of data. Then I will be reformatting my computer to start fresh and clean. Until everything is reformatted, reinstalled, and my information is put back on my computer I will not be able to do much in the way of web design. All my files and programs are on my desktop computer. I am using my laptop right now. There will be some things I will be able to do on here and I will be setting it up tomorrow to be able to complete some work that was promised to be completed soon.

Take this as a warning not to click on links to software that is NOT from Microsoft. They are not going to be sending you to some third party to download stuff, they will want to sell it to you themselves. Or give it to you because you use their software.

Labels: trojan horse, virus