Virus in Sky! & Ground Control for the original Fly?

[Guest]

I made sort of an interesting discovery today. Since I have been doing a lot of real-world flying lately, I thought it was time to start backing up a lot of my old Fly! stuff on to a CD, so I have the option of taking Fly! (yes, the original) off my computer and then easily installing add-ons later on if I want to put it back on.I had to transfer the files from my laptop to my step-mom's computer, because she has a burner, but she had me do a virus scan on all of the files first.When I scanned the zip files for Ground Control, Sky! SE (1.1 I think it was?) and the Sky! SE Add-On Pack, viruses turned up!The virus, the scanner said, is called W95.Hybis.gen - it was in the Setup.exe file for both Sky! zips, and in the Ground Control .exe install file in Ground Control.I thought it was more than a little strange that all three HITW add-ons contained this virus.Apparently it is a worm, which monitors the emails that you send out and alters your Wsock32.dll file.I got information about it from www.symantec.com.Anyone else ever find this virus, or want to comment?< Eric >St. Cloud RegionalKSTC

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Eric,>I had to transfer the files from my laptop to my step-mom's >computer, because she has a burner, but she had me do a >virus scan on all of the files first. > Your step-mum is a very wise lady :-)We can all take a leaf out of her book and ensure that our virus checkers are up to date and active.>The virus, the scanner said, is called W95.Hybis.gen >It's an old virus so you have probably had it for some time.Haven't you been using a virus checker???>I thought it was more than a little strange that all three >HITW add-ons contained this virus. >Did you check the rest of your hardrive? Strange if was only hooked onto HITW files?>Apparently it is a worm, which monitors the emails that you >send out and alters your Wsock32.dll file. >>I got information about it from www.symantec.com. >>Anyone else ever find this virus, or want to comment? >I've not seen this before but will definitely be much more careful re checking files for virus's in future. Cheers,Roger @YSSY

[RandallR 444]

Eric,My systems have been scanned many times since downloading those files. Though I no longer have the original zipped files (I have copies of all the unzipped files of the packages), they were scanned after the original download and were found to be clean. I scanned them again - they're still clean.Did you download these files recently or some time ago? You may want to notify the File Library managers about these files so they can check them out, though I'm guessing these files may have been infected by a virus that was already resident on your system.

[Guest]

I haven't updated my virus checker in a long time. This has taught me a good lesson that a subscription will be worth the price.I was only scanning a few Fly! files, and not my whole computer, so I'm not sure if the virus is elsewhere on my system. I did think it was odd that it attached itself to all of the install programs that I downloaded from HITW. That's why I brought it up on the forums here, I was curious if anyone else had discovered it. It's quite possible that I got it from somewhere else and it's gone all through my system... The files are old, I probably downloaded them more than a year ago.Thanks for your comments. I'll post again if I figure out what the deal is. Anybody else know anything?< Eric >St. Cloud RegionalKSTC

[michal 44]

>I haven't updated my virus checker in a long time. This has >taught me a good lesson that a subscription will be worth >the price. I get weekly updates for my virus scanner and it is all free (including the original program). After surviving for 3 years without any anti-virus program I finally had no choice but to bite the bullet - there were 26 infected files on my PC. But none of that flight sim related, including HITW.Michael J.