How did I get Virused! Does 'Guard' not check against web attack?

[ekimr]

Hi,

I am trying to work out how I got attacked and thus the solution to prevent it happening again.

I do have McCafee running (6.xx) and I had a very bad attack on my machine (Nimda and W32/Elk) -the files that seemed to be attacked were all around the Personal web server and Inet scripts.

I read these particular virus's could have been spread via shared drives (which I have) or via flaws in my Internet explorer (i have 5.01) and Personal web server running.

In my mind - and I am an accepted novice here in this world, if I have guard running (and i think it was all turned on), could it not really have been enough.

Is this where firewall and virus checker are different?

Is there a version of IE where I can be sure that I am totally 'secure' and not liable to weaknesses being exploited.

I do need my PWS running, I do need shared drives and I need to now - become much more secure - and am hoping this forum can give me the whole picture on how to achieve this. (I have set up firewall (mCCafee) ) but how do I know those programs that can run and should be run when I am doing certain tasks, and those that need stopping.

Many thanks if anybody takes the time to read this and reply.

 

[AVDude]

Hi

You need to patch your machine.

Nimda looks for IIS servers and if you're not patched Nimda will use the "Malformed Get Request" to infect you.

For more info:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_99209.htm

IE 5.01 without any fixes are also open to many virus types that make use of different security holes.

Use Windows Update to get all you need.



Cheers
AVDude