Jan 04 2010
One of the biggest problems I encounter day after day is virus’s and spyware contracted through Peer to Peer sharing. Most of the time I get the excuse that the users children download music and content from these sites. I educate the user to understand that this sharing is actually illegal and results in an infection.
Guide to Limewire Virus Avoidance.
This is a general guide to avoiding viruses embedded in files commonly found in the file sharing program Limewire.
Before you even download a file always ignore the star count rating next to the file. Many people who share files DO NOT know they are infected! Instead from within the search results window right click on the file you want to download and choose advanced. Now choose look up file with Bitzi. If people have posted warnings about the file you will find it here. Lastly once you download a file DO NOT open it from within LimeWire!! Instead go to the folder where you have chosen LimeWire to store your downloads. Next find the file you just downloaded and scan (THAT FILE) with your anti-virus/spyware program. I.e. AVG anti-virus spyware allows you to right click and scan a selected file. Or you can scan the whole shared folder for example. Then you can choose to open the file. Stay proactive keep your virus/spyware definitions up to date.
1. Think about what it is that you want to download.
2. Make sure that the content you are downloading is legal.
3. Realize that searching for a game on Limewire usually results in an average of 50-70% of content to be a virus. Your game will probably be much larger than a virus. So as a general rule of thumb, anything that’s claiming to be a game but is less than 5 MB in size is most likely a virus.
4. Realize that music has a camouflage virus. For example, if you type “Temmperaturree-Sean Paul” (Mistakes and all…) a camouflage virus will be a search result and it will read “Temmperaturree-Sean Paul” as opposed to a real song which will read “Temperature – Sean Paul” and if you move the mouse over it you will see the year, CD it is from and other information; you will see nothing about the “song” when it is a camouflage virus.
5. Do not download any file types that you do not want, so if you want an mp3 music file, don’t be downloading any exe files. Remember click the tab to search for Music only.
6. Know that it depends on the size for programs. If it’s a small program like Trayit (a program that will minimize programs into the system tray) or Artmoney (a game cheat program), you’ll have to only download the .zip or .rar files and scan them for viruses. For larger programs you can usually follow the same rule of thumb for games.
7. Also look for the BitRate for Music. If there’s no BitRate in a music file, there’s no music in the file. It means that it is a virus. Videos and Software don’t have BitRates.
8. Another thing to do when you download a file, for example Mp3’s, right-click at the bar at the top (that’s the info bar), select the “length” option, and again, check if it has any length available, if not, it’s probably a virus, and if it’s ABOVE the exact length, e.g. your song is typically 2 to 3 minutes, but the file is 23 minutes, that’s probably a virus.
9. Look at how the file is displayed, most likely but not always the ones that aren’t capitalized are viruses.
10. If you do download a file look at the status, if it is going unusually fast it might be a virus.
* Your IP address is not used while chatting with a host.
* Be careful with what you download because the music industry does sue people that steal their music for millions of dollars.
* Do not download something that claims to be a downloader or something that says it contains a link in it that can download what you want. It’s usually a trick.
* Never open an .exe file that you downloaded off Limewire. Especially if it has a white box instead of a real icon. (Although, some legitimate programs just use the default Windows icon for executables…)
* Do not download video files, many of them have pop-ups and install malicious programs.
* Songs are 3-7 MB, Videos are 10 MB+, Games from 2000 or before are about 250 MB, while newer games are in the GB+ range.
* What to do if you downloaded a virus? Erase the file, scan your computer and quarantine anything that comes up. Viruses can steal credit cards, passwords, even your social security number. Be cautious!
* Be wary of more cleverly disguised files, even though they say that they are what you were looking for, they still could be dangerous, don’t download “SONGS” that are below 1 MB, Limewire should warn you automaticly if you are about to download a dangourous file. But dont rely on that to be safe, always double check what you are downloading
* Gnutella is one of the most virus filled networks. It is suggested to use alternatives such as bittorrent.
* It is possible to download Limewire Pro from Limewire! (But if you don’t want to do something illegal download frostwire instead. Its based on LimeWire Pro and its free.)
