Wednesday, February 6th 2013
As you can see from the coloured dateline above, my computer is back in working order. (I use the dateline only when posting from my computer.) I collected our machines this afternoon and, of course, paid an appropriate fee for the services rendered by the computer repair shop.
There was no virus found on either machine. Tigger was right and I was wrong in ascribing the faults to a pathogen. So what caused our computers to misbehave and be unable to connect to the Internet? The technician was cagey about that but claimed that the machines had been scanned for viruses and a few other matters attended to. In view of this vagueness, can we be sure that our machines are now in working order and the faults will not reappear. Actually, yes, we can, and for a reason that I will divulge in a moment.
I brought the computers home on the shopping trolley, connected mine to the power and external disc drives and waited for it to reboot. I had had a quick look at the machines running in the computer shop but it would need more than a quick look to convince me that all was in order. However, it seemed to be, and all the processes I tried worked as they should.
At this point I was interrupted by a message from Tigger. She was on the way home but was stopping off at Wasabi to buy a curry for our evening meal. We have this down to a fine art. Tigger lets me know when she’s at the shop and I then ready the rice and fill the kettle for tea. Tigger messages me again when she leaves the bus (a few yards down the road from us) and I switch on the kettle and put the rice in the microwave. As Tigger comes through the door with the curry, the rice and tea are ready.
It was only after our meal that I browsed the BBC news on my iPod and discovered what had caused our computer problems. It was not a virus, not a failure of our Internet connection, not a malfunction of our computers. In a word it was: Kaspersky. The news item, which you will find here, tells us that an update to the Kaspersky Internet Security firewall that we use, along with thousands of other people, contained a bug that prevented computers using the Windows XP operating system from accessing the Internet. Once the problem manifested itself, users would need a new update to correct the problem but, of course, they were unable to acquire this as they were prevented from going online.
Thanks Kaspersky, you have cost us £96 in computer repairs that we didn’t need to spend.
That still leaves a mystery, however. The technician gave no sign that he knew about the Kaspersky problem and yet he apparently ran our computers and connected them to the Internet. How was this possible if the Kaspersky update was blocking access? Once connected to the Internet in the shop, the Kaspersky firewall repaired itself with a corrected update – which is why everything is working again. But the question remains: how did our computers manage to update their firewalls when Kaspersky was preventing them from accessing the Internet? Or did the technician know about this, and perform a roll-back of the firewall database, allowing the update to occur? If he did, he gave no sign of it to me.
Perhaps I’d better not worry about that but simply be glad everything is back to normal. (Apart from the hole in my wallet where there used to be ninety-six pounds, of course…)
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I’m pleased you’re back up and running. It’s frustrating when you can’t get solid answers at times like these – my guess would be that the tech disabled any firewall and/or antivirus before attempting the connect via whatever protected connection they use. Frequently I see “solutions” to problems that begin with “first disable all your protection.” Yeah, right.
One thing that might be useful to you is Steve Gibson’s site. Although SpinRite is his main claim to fame, he’s been creating and making freely available all sorts of security tests for computers and they’re very useful. If you try his “Shields Up” section you can test whether your computers are exposed and vulnerable – even your printer, I believe. The starting point is https://www.grc.com. Leaktest is really helpful, and IDServe is an excellent tool for checking out IP addresses (both as URLs and as IP strings).
Our system is protected by various means but the main work is done by ZoneAlarm (the free version). When we can afford it I’ll upgrade to the commercial offering, but for now the freebie Iz Da Biz – the feedback from Steve’s check is that we’re basically invisible on the ‘Net and impenetrable to a degree that is unusual. As long as I can keep us that way…
I have emailed the technician, posing my question. Perhaps I will get an answer. Kaspersky must have been running for it to update so the paradox remains.
I know about Gibson and Shields Up but haven’t visited lately. Maybe I will take a look to see what’s new.
I’m glad to see that you’re up and running again. For about the last 10 years I’ve been using the free version of AVG antivirus and to date have had trouble-free on- and offline computer use. All kudos to AVG, in my opinion.
All of these applications have their merits and I suppose we tend to stick with the one we are used to. Unfortunately, none can guarantee 100% protection because there are so many nasty people actively seeking to by-pass them.
I’ll admit I would have been embarrassed to have got caught out by a virus but fortunately that was not the case.
This may help, too:
The Russian anti-virus firm said the problem could be resolved if users disabled the “Web AV” component of the software before rolling back problematic update and installing a revised set of virus definition files, which was published within two hours of the problem rearing its ugly head late on Monday. The “Web AV” component can be reapplied once this process is completed.
Yes, I had seen that. It confirms my point: Kaspersky could not regenerate itself automatically, having blocked its access to the Internet and would require operator intervention (i.e. disabling of the Web av) before it could do so.
Hence my question: did the technician realize what was wrong with our computers and correct Kaspersky but not tell us thisis what he had done?
I await with interest his reply to my email.
After my office rearrangement, and since I have been unable to find part time employment, I only set up my “play computer. However, Tuesday, I got on with a transcription service so I had to undo everything so I coul hook up my work computer which entails hooking both computers to a KVM switch that lets them share the same keyboard, mouse and monitor. Had a rough 20 minutes not getting the mouse to work until I realized I had the mouse plugged into the keyboard slot and the keyboard plugged into the mouse slot — although why the keyboard worked and the mouse didn’t- – - – So entirely aggravating when the little gizmos won’t function and you can’t figure out why.
I can well imagine your frustration and annoyance. It’s bad enough when the machines themselves malfunction but even worse when it turns out to be my own fault because that leaves me with no one to shout at!