• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

The Inquirer Hit by a Virus

Jimmy 2004

New Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2005
Messages
5,458 (0.78/day)
Location
England
System Name Jimmy 2004's PC
Processor S754 AMD Athlon64 3200+ @ 2640MHz
Motherboard ASUS K8N
Cooling AC Freezer 64 Pro + Zalman VF1000 + 5x120mm Antec TriCool Case Fans
Memory 1GB Kingston PC3200 (2x512MB)
Video Card(s) Saphire 256MB X800 GTO @ 450MHz/560MHz (Core/Memory)
Storage 500GB Western Digital SATA II + 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax SATA
Display(s) Digimate 17" TFT (1280x1024)
Case Antec P182
Audio Device(s) Audigy 4 + Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 Speakers
Power Supply Corsair HX520W
Software Windows XP Home
Any techPowerUp! readers who also read The Inquirer may want to stay away from The Inquirer for a while after reports that the site is infected with a virus. According to NOD32, the virus is a variant of the BAT/Emilia.D trojan, although the screenshots would suggest that this could be result of heuristic proection rather than a confirmed infection. The screenshots from VR-Zone are below, so I'd recommend that you don't go to the Inquirer for at least a few hours to be on the safe side, and if you do then make sure your virus software is up-to-date.


View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Joined
Aug 10, 2006
Messages
4,413 (0.69/day)
Processor Intel Core i7-7700K
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix Z270E Gaming
Cooling Arctic Cooling Freezer i11
Memory 4x 8GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX @ 2133MHz
Video Card(s) 2x NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti FEs
Storage 512GB SSD, 2x2TB HDD
Display(s) AOC U2879VF, AOC G2260VWQ6
Case Corsair 750D Airflow Edition
Power Supply EVGA Supernova 850G
Software Windows 10 x64 Pro

F-22

New Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Messages
103 (0.02/day)
I just went to that site and I have no Virus.
 

Jimmy 2004

New Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2005
Messages
5,458 (0.78/day)
Location
England
System Name Jimmy 2004's PC
Processor S754 AMD Athlon64 3200+ @ 2640MHz
Motherboard ASUS K8N
Cooling AC Freezer 64 Pro + Zalman VF1000 + 5x120mm Antec TriCool Case Fans
Memory 1GB Kingston PC3200 (2x512MB)
Video Card(s) Saphire 256MB X800 GTO @ 450MHz/560MHz (Core/Memory)
Storage 500GB Western Digital SATA II + 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax SATA
Display(s) Digimate 17" TFT (1280x1024)
Case Antec P182
Audio Device(s) Audigy 4 + Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 Speakers
Power Supply Corsair HX520W
Software Windows XP Home
I just went to that site and I have no Virus.

At least you don't think you do...

Did you visit that story in the screenshots?
 
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
1,181 (0.18/day)
Processor 7900
Motherboard Rampage Apex
Cooling H115i
Memory 64GB TridentZ 3200 14-14-14-34-1T
Video Card(s) Fury X
Case Corsair 740
Audio Device(s) 8ch LPCM via HDMI to Yamaha Z7 Receiver
Power Supply Corsair AX860
Mouse G903
Keyboard G810
Software 8.1 x64
Joined
Mar 28, 2007
Messages
2,490 (0.40/day)
Location
Your house.
System Name Jupiter-2
Processor Intel i3-6100
Motherboard H170I-PLUS D3
Cooling Stock
Memory 8GB Mushkin DDR3L-1600
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 1050ti
Storage 512GB Corsair SSD
Display(s) BENQ 24in
Case Lian Li PC-Q01B Mini ITX
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Corsair 450W
Mouse Logitech Trackball
Keyboard Custom bamboo job
Software Win 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores Finished Super PI on legendary mode in only 13 hours.
I don't get it -- the HTML file had a virus? I'm thinking this guy's computer was just infected and for some reason he thought it was the site.
 

zekrahminator

McLovin
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Messages
9,066 (1.37/day)
Location
My house.
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane @ 2.8GHz (224x12.5, 1.425V)
Motherboard Gigabyte sumthin-or-another, it's got an nForce 430
Cooling Dual 120mm case fans front/rear, Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro, Zalman VF-900 on GPU
Memory 2GB G.Skill DDR2 800
Video Card(s) Sapphire X850XT @ 580/600
Storage WD 160 GB SATA hard drive.
Display(s) Hanns G 19" widescreen, 5ms response time, 1440x900
Case Thermaltake Soprano (black with side window).
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster Live! 24 bit (paired with X-530 speakers).
Power Supply ThermalTake 430W TR2
Software XP Home SP2, can't wait for Vista SP1.
I would have laughed so hard if the news source was Fudzilla :p.
 
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Messages
1,956 (0.27/day)
Location
The Kingdom of Norway
Processor Ryzen 5900X
Motherboard Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX 1.1
Cooling Noctua NB-U12A
Memory 2x 32GB Fury DDR4 3200mhz
Video Card(s) PowerColor Radeon 5700 XT Red Dragon
Storage Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCIe 4.0
Display(s) 2x Dell U2412M
Case Phanteks P400A
Audio Device(s) Hifimediy Sabre 9018 USB DAC
Power Supply Corsair AX850 (from 2012)
Software Windows 10?
this is some ads that has virus in them
this has happend to many sites that gives you "scan you computer" ads etc
so it can happen to ANY site, that uses some dubleclick or some other ads thingy, i think TechPowerUp uses text (google ads) and png/flash images added by w1zzard, not dubleclick etc
 

kakazza

New Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
470 (0.07/day)
Will people ever learn to not make JPEG Screenshots of their desktop and use PNG instead?...
 
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Messages
1,956 (0.27/day)
Location
The Kingdom of Norway
Processor Ryzen 5900X
Motherboard Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX 1.1
Cooling Noctua NB-U12A
Memory 2x 32GB Fury DDR4 3200mhz
Video Card(s) PowerColor Radeon 5700 XT Red Dragon
Storage Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCIe 4.0
Display(s) 2x Dell U2412M
Case Phanteks P400A
Audio Device(s) Hifimediy Sabre 9018 USB DAC
Power Supply Corsair AX850 (from 2012)
Software Windows 10?
V

v-zero

Guest
NOD32 is seriously retarded software. You might as well ask a cucumber to accurately detect viruses.
 

zekrahminator

McLovin
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Messages
9,066 (1.37/day)
Location
My house.
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane @ 2.8GHz (224x12.5, 1.425V)
Motherboard Gigabyte sumthin-or-another, it's got an nForce 430
Cooling Dual 120mm case fans front/rear, Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro, Zalman VF-900 on GPU
Memory 2GB G.Skill DDR2 800
Video Card(s) Sapphire X850XT @ 580/600
Storage WD 160 GB SATA hard drive.
Display(s) Hanns G 19" widescreen, 5ms response time, 1440x900
Case Thermaltake Soprano (black with side window).
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster Live! 24 bit (paired with X-530 speakers).
Power Supply ThermalTake 430W TR2
Software XP Home SP2, can't wait for Vista SP1.
Will people ever learn to not make JPEG Screenshots of their desktop and use PNG instead?...

Why? As far as I can tell, JPEG is superior. Screenshots I took just now:

JPEG: 61KB

PNG: 611KB
 
Joined
Nov 12, 2006
Messages
2,996 (0.47/day)
System Name COLOSSUS-MK4
Processor E8400 @4.4 GHz - FSB @550 MHZ
Motherboard Asus P5K Premium (Black Pearl)
Cooling Xigmatek HDT-S1283
Memory 2x1GB Geil BlckDrgn 800 @1158 5-5-5-18
Video Card(s) 8800GT 512MB @740/1782/2080
Storage Hitachi T7K250 250GB & 7200.10 Seagate 250GB
Display(s) Gateway FPD1975W 19" Widescreen
Case Antec 1200
Audio Device(s) Xi-FI Xtreme Audio
Power Supply CoolerMaster IGreen 500W
Software XP Home SP3
Benchmark Scores SuperPi: 10.563 Sciencemark: 2563.14
NOD32 is seriously retarded software. You might as well ask a cucumber to accurately detect viruses.

Nod32 is damn good. The heuristics can just be set to be extremely sensitive. Don't knock it just because it has the options to allow scanning for unidentified threats.
 

kakazza

New Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
470 (0.07/day)
Why? As far as I can tell, JPEG is superior. Screenshots I took just now:

JPEG: 61KB

PNG: 611KB

5 bucks say you took the screenshot of your background image ;)

Just took one myself of the full screen with Firefox/TPU open.

1920x1200
PNG: 92KB
JPEG 80% Quality: 291KB
JPEG 100% Quality: 660KB

JPEG _will_ give you noticable artifacts with text, as it softens the edges, adding ugly shit around the text. JPEG is considered a "lossy format", you will lose quality, whereas PNG is lossless. :)

For photos (graphic background, i.e. non-browser, non-text screenshots) JPEG will result in a smaller filesize.



Edit:
Comparision:
Top: JPEG 80%
Middle: PNG
Bottom: JPEG 100%



Compare quality and colors (my nick) :)
 
Last edited:

zekrahminator

McLovin
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
Messages
9,066 (1.37/day)
Location
My house.
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane @ 2.8GHz (224x12.5, 1.425V)
Motherboard Gigabyte sumthin-or-another, it's got an nForce 430
Cooling Dual 120mm case fans front/rear, Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro, Zalman VF-900 on GPU
Memory 2GB G.Skill DDR2 800
Video Card(s) Sapphire X850XT @ 580/600
Storage WD 160 GB SATA hard drive.
Display(s) Hanns G 19" widescreen, 5ms response time, 1440x900
Case Thermaltake Soprano (black with side window).
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster Live! 24 bit (paired with X-530 speakers).
Power Supply ThermalTake 430W TR2
Software XP Home SP2, can't wait for Vista SP1.
5 bucks say you took the screenshot of your background image ;)

Just took one myself of the full screen with Firefox/TPU open.

1920x1200
PNG: 92KB
JPEG 80% Quality: 291KB
JPEG 100% Quality: 660KB
I stand corrected, I will from hence forth save all my images as PNGs whenever possible :toast:.
 

DarkMatter

New Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
1,714 (0.28/day)
Processor Intel C2Q Q6600 @ Stock (for now)
Motherboard Asus P5Q-E
Cooling Proc: Scythe Mine, Graphics: Zalman VF900 Cu
Memory 4 GB (2x2GB) DDR2 Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) GigaByte 8800GT Stock Clocks: 700Mhz Core, 1700 Shader, 1940 Memory
Storage 74 GB WD Raptor 10000rpm, 2x250 GB Seagate Raid 0
Display(s) HP p1130, 21" Trinitron
Case Antec p180
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi PLatinum
Power Supply 700W FSP Group 85% Efficiency
Software Windows XP
5 bucks say you took the screenshot of your background image ;)

Just took one myself of the full screen with Firefox/TPU open.

1920x1200
PNG: 92KB
JPEG 80% Quality: 291KB
JPEG 100% Quality: 660KB

JPEG _will_ give you noticable artifacts with text, as it softens the edges, adding ugly shit around the text. JPEG is considered a "lossy format", you will lose quality, whereas PNG is lossless. :)

For photos (graphic background, i.e. non-browser, non-text screenshots) JPEG will result in a smaller filesize.



Edit:
Comparision:
Top: JPEG 80%
Middle: PNG
Bottom: JPEG 100%



Compare quality and colors (my nick) :)

Although you are right about png being superior, I get a lot better results with jpeg than that of your example. 100% same true color and much sharper letters and I am talking about 7 out of 12 quality in Photoshop CS3. At 1280x960 that jpg is 302 KB and the png is 357KB. So I guess it depends on the program you use to save them.
 
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Messages
1,956 (0.27/day)
Location
The Kingdom of Norway
Processor Ryzen 5900X
Motherboard Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX 1.1
Cooling Noctua NB-U12A
Memory 2x 32GB Fury DDR4 3200mhz
Video Card(s) PowerColor Radeon 5700 XT Red Dragon
Storage Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCIe 4.0
Display(s) 2x Dell U2412M
Case Phanteks P400A
Audio Device(s) Hifimediy Sabre 9018 USB DAC
Power Supply Corsair AX850 (from 2012)
Software Windows 10?
come on stop whining about jpg vs png hehe
NOD32 is the best antivirus, its lightwight, scans fast, dosnt use you whole system,
people that use norton are stupid, it takes around 80% of you system resources from you

so i will recommend NOD32 before ever recommending norton
norton has to much crap and uses javascripts in their interface, nod32 uses pure c+ interface so no problems what so ever with missing text etc

you wont even notice NOD32 running, and if you enable advanced herutices it will give you false postives on crackes/keygens irc system scripts and so on but it wont on the default settings
 

F-22

New Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Messages
103 (0.02/day)

---


PNG is only smaller when dealing with TINY files... I posted my results 2 times. The top one is JPEG80, the bottom one is PNG32. The JPG result image is 77.7KB while the PNG result image is 90.6KB.
 

kakazza

New Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
470 (0.07/day)
PNG is only smaller when dealing with TINY files... I posted my results 2 times. The top one is JPEG80, the bottom one is PNG32. The JPG result image is 77.7KB while the PNG result image is 90.6KB.


Resaving fucked up jpegs with artifacts as png doesn't really help... but thanks for trying ;)
 

Jimmy 2004

New Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2005
Messages
5,458 (0.78/day)
Location
England
System Name Jimmy 2004's PC
Processor S754 AMD Athlon64 3200+ @ 2640MHz
Motherboard ASUS K8N
Cooling AC Freezer 64 Pro + Zalman VF1000 + 5x120mm Antec TriCool Case Fans
Memory 1GB Kingston PC3200 (2x512MB)
Video Card(s) Saphire 256MB X800 GTO @ 450MHz/560MHz (Core/Memory)
Storage 500GB Western Digital SATA II + 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax SATA
Display(s) Digimate 17" TFT (1280x1024)
Case Antec P182
Audio Device(s) Audigy 4 + Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 Speakers
Power Supply Corsair HX520W
Software Windows XP Home
Btw, I would have done better quality screenies but those are straight from VR-Zone - I didn't want to get the virus myself.

And obviously there is no point 'resaving fucked up jpegs' as kakazza put it :)
 

Necrofire

New Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2007
Messages
585 (0.10/day)
System Name Chuck
Processor Core i5-2500k @ 4.5Ghz
Motherboard msi P67A-C43
Cooling hyper 212, 2 120mm fans
Memory 8GB DDR3 1600MHz
Video Card(s) XFX 6870
Storage 60GB sata3 sandforce ssd, 1TB samsung hdd
Display(s) Yamakazi Catleap
Case Possibly Antec, not sure
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Rosewill 600W
I did look at the article...waht does the virus do?
png is superior when saving text and pics with a small amount of colors.
jpeg is superior when saving complex pictures like from a camera.

png is superior over jpeg for screenshots involving simple colored windows and lots of text.

the png is bigger on the jpeg comparison, because the jpeg inside has lots of colors and noise.
 

W1zzard

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
26,956 (3.71/day)
Processor Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory 48 GB
Video Card(s) RTX 4080
Storage 2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s) 30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software Windows 10 64-bit
dont forget about gif which works on every platform, even with transparency (no png transparency on ie). file sizes are pretty nice too, especially for screenshots with lots of text. also it doesnt have those gay jpg artifacts
 
Top