Friday, May 2, 2008

Installment #21 - Trip planning or Travel arrangements


I'm taking a trip in a couple of weeks to New York City to audition/interview to be on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" I wanted to get a super deal on my flight and my hotel room so I figured I'd try our one of those sites like expedia.com, etc. I checked on 14 related sites and found that a couple of the major players, among others, are definitely to be avoided.

Here are the results:

BAD:
  • nycvisit.com
  • fodors.com
  • orbitz.com
  • travelocity.com (I actually GOT infected from this site - see below)
GOOD:
Travelocity, like MySpace and YouTube, is a popular site and highly prone to invasion. I checked on Travelocity's safety and found it to be a questionable site. Several users commented that it was not a safe site for various reasons.

Why I chose to be brave, bold, and overly optimistic I may never know! The second I pulled up the website, I "felt" something wasn't right. Sure enough, I did an AVG scan and found myself "infected" with the system32 virus! As I read on, I discovered that it was one of the most difficult to remove because it changes its name and keeps itself hidden. Not just with AVG, but I cleaned my system with every utility I had, including SpySweeper, Spybot, Ad-Aware, CCleaner, etc. Knock on wood - I evidently seem to be back up and running.

The moral of my story is I need to follow my own advice!

BUT, I learned something EXTREMELY valuable to share with everyone.

Did you know that, if you suspect something "fishy" going on, NEVER, NEVER cut your machine off, or do a Restart or reboot! Stay on until you're forced off; and, if you don't already have one, get a virus remover (not just a virus scanner) that is worth a darn!

Getting infected...(coming soon)

No comments:

Post a Comment