Did my first clean up job for dad's company

[hellow533]

Alright, so we got a call in about a computer running "slow". The client wanted me to clean it up and remove most of the crap off of there. So I drove out to her house and expected an easy job. Ohh, and this is my first ever job on a computer since getting my CompTIA A+ and Net+, so I was excited. I get to her house and take a look at her desktop. You might think a simple cleanup would only take like an hour right? WRONG. It took 6 fucking hours. Why? Because she never used any virus protection ever since getting the computer 2 years ago. So I first installed PC Tools Internet security (which we have a contract with).

Anyways, after doing the update on Internet Security, the antivirus found 17 THOUSAND malicious files.

SEVENTEEN F*%KING THOUSAND

This included Viruses of all kinds, keyloggers, trojans, tracking shit. That's the tip of the iceberg, I'm not getting in to it all. I just know she had a lot of shit that took forever to remove.

So I cleaned all of that up and then got to deleting files and bullsh*t from her computer. First off I deleted all the toolbar shit she had, then all the files out and about. It then came time for AOL, which took over an hour on its own, and I don't even know if I got all of it off. Some temp internet files, other files, junk files, files from programs I removed, AOL files, etc. all came to about 305 GB of memory deleted. You think it's impossible to have that much memory deleted? It's not. And after all of that, I thought I was close to done when I saw more shit to take off. But there's more, because that shit that I had to take off was in the registry as well. Now, from the very start I suggested we just wipe the entire computer clean and reload windows 7. She didn't want to, she wanted me to clean up what shit she already had. After cleaning the computer to all knowledge I have, it happened. Somebody got in to her computer. I just said "fuck no" and unplugged the modem, and rebooted the router as well and re-enabling the firewall she so kindly disabled. Keeping the internet unplugged, I got to search on my own to find what the fuck gave access to her computer. That took a good hour. That it? No. Never enough is it? I then took apart the computer and found about 4 pounds *not really* of dust inside. After using her husbands air compressor to blow it out while trying not to damage it, I put it back together and plugged everything back in. I'm hoping she has no more problems with the cybergate *guessing* that was getting to her computer, and hope PC tools with be enough for her to keep it safe. I also got the great joy of resetting her router, and putting on a WPA key which she never even heard of. I never touched an Amped router in my life before this either. I feel I didn't get a lot of the junk off, and am willing to assume that wannabe hacker still might have access. but after 6 hours we both wanted me to leave, and she didn't want me taking her desktop. The firewall should be enough in general, but how would I know. For my first job experience I still think I did a bad job, but she seemed happy with it when I left. It still ran much slower than what I wanted, but it was a good 5X faster after removing all that junk. Hope my next job I can just set up a system or something.
After everything I ran a defrag on her computer which took a surprisingly short time.

Ohh, and I forgot to mention how I had to re-setup her HP printer to her computer, and fix the problem of the two not working together. That wasn't very hard, but was a pain in the ass.

[centip3de]

Alright, so we got a call in about a computer running "slow". The client wanted me to clean it up and remove most of the crap off of there. So I drove out to her house and expected an easy job. Ohh, and this is my first ever job on a computer since getting my CompTIA A+ and Net+, so I was excited. I get to her house and take a look at her desktop. You might think a simple cleanup would only take like an hour right? WRONG. It took 6 fucking hours. Why? Because she never used any virus protection ever since getting the computer 2 years ago. So I first installed PC Tools Internet security (which we have a contract with).

Anyways, after doing the update on Internet Security, the antivirus found 17 THOUSAND malicious files.

SEVENTEEN F*%KING THOUSAND

This included Viruses of all kinds, keyloggers, trojans, tracking shit. That's the tip of the iceberg, I'm not getting in to it all. I just know she had a lot of shit that took forever to remove.

So I cleaned all of that up and then got to deleting files and bullsh*t from her computer. First off I deleted all the toolbar shit she had, then all the files out and about. It then came time for AOL, which took over an hour on its own, and I don't even know if I got all of it off. Some temp internet files, other files, junk files, files from programs I removed, AOL files, etc. all came to about 305 GB of memory deleted. You think it's impossible to have that much memory deleted? It's not. And after all of that, I thought I was close to done when I saw more shit to take off. But there's more, because that shit that I had to take off was in the registry as well. Now, from the very start I suggested we just wipe the entire computer clean and reload windows 7. She didn't want to, she wanted me to clean up what shit she already had. After cleaning the computer to all knowledge I have, it happened. Somebody got in to her computer. I just said "fuck no" and unplugged the modem, and rebooted the router as well and re-enabling the firewall she so kindly disabled. Keeping the internet unplugged, I got to search on my own to find what the fuck gave access to her computer. That took a good hour. That it? No. Never enough is it? I then took apart the computer and found about 4 pounds *not really* of dust inside. After using her husbands air compressor to blow it out while trying not to damage it, I put it back together and plugged everything back in. I'm hoping she has no more problems with the cybergate *guessing* that was getting to her computer, and hope PC tools with be enough for her to keep it safe. I also got the great joy of resetting her router, and putting on a WPA key which she never even heard of. I never touched an Amped router in my life before this either. I feel I didn't get a lot of the junk off, and am willing to assume that wannabe hacker still might have access. but after 6 hours we both wanted me to leave, and she didn't want me taking her desktop. The firewall should be enough in general, but how would I know. For my first job experience I still think I did a bad job, but she seemed happy with it when I left. It still ran much slower than what I wanted, but it was a good 5X faster after removing all that junk. Hope my next job I can just set up a system or something.
After everything I ran a defrag on her computer which took a surprisingly short time.

Ohh, and I forgot to mention how I had to re-setup her HP printer to her computer, and fix the problem of the two not working together. That wasn't very hard, but was a pain in the ass.

Yea, you never forget your first job, and it's usually extremely surprising that people could be so blindly stupid with their computers. For instance; my Dad gave me the job of pen-testing his snomobiling club's website, which would be my first ever pen-testing project, so I was pretty stoked. I decided to throw everything I knew at that site, just to make sure it locked up tighter than Mother Teresa. I started at around 10 AM, and finished at around 3 AM the next day and didn't waste a single minute. That website had more vulnerabilities than I had previously thought possible (Persistent and non persistent XSS, SQL injections were possible in just about every textbox that existed, it allowed me to upload arbitrary files through the profile image uploader, it used GET's for the user/pass, it had a cookie that I shit you not, looked exactly like this "User = -username-" allowing me to get admin access, by just knowing his username, etc.) . In fact, during the course of said pen-testing, I discovered several new vulnerabilities I didn't know about previously (I started adlibing nearer to the end). Anyway, after that, I lost faith in all humanity and technology... Was fun as hell though...

[Mars7411]

How the hell could someone get 17 Thousand Viruses on their computer? I could Image how idiots wouldn't know how to use their computers and not have any Virus protection, but getting 17 thousand Viruses, that person must have been downloading thousands of porn torrents for years.

[hellow533]

How the hell could someone get 17 Thousand Viruses on their computer? I could Image how idiots wouldn't know how to use their computers and not have any Virus protection, but getting 17 thousand Viruses, that person must have been downloading thousands of porn torrents for years.

No idea, most of those were minor, but she had some damn major viruses as well. I just hope all of them are actually off.

[tremor77]

How the hell could someone get 17 Thousand Viruses on their computer? I could Image how idiots wouldn't know how to use their computers and not have any Virus protection, but getting 17 thousand Viruses, that person must have been downloading thousands of porn torrents for years.

No idea, most of those were minor, but she had some damn major viruses as well. I just hope all of them are actually off.

* Reset to factory default.... then, see if management will allow you to put in policy for downloading and safe web browsing. Then, consider getting a small business license to something like Symantec Endpoint or Trend, where any PC that comes on the network gets the client pushed and is automatically covered. Try to show that a day or two of hard IT work and about $1400 in equipment and software licensing can saves 10's of thousands in downtime and wasted IT labor on trying to recover things like this. Don't be reactive to problems.. stop them before they happen..

[hellow533]

How the hell could someone get 17 Thousand Viruses on their computer? I could Image how idiots wouldn't know how to use their computers and not have any Virus protection, but getting 17 thousand Viruses, that person must have been downloading thousands of porn torrents for years.

No idea, most of those were minor, but she had some damn major viruses as well. I just hope all of them are actually off.

* Reset to factory default.... then, see if management will allow you to put in policy for downloading and safe web browsing. Then, consider getting a small business license to something like Symantec Endpoint or Trend, where any PC that comes on the network gets the client pushed and is automatically covered. Try to show that a day or two of hard IT work and about $1400 in equipment and software licensing can saves 10's of thousands in downtime and wasted IT labor on trying to recover things like this. Don't be reactive to problems.. stop them before they happen..

I told her it would be best to save what she might need to the terabyte hard drive I brought with me, then reset (or wipe it). However you want to say it, then I would re-load windows seven with what junk she had. She argued with me and said she didn't want to do that..

[tremor77]

^ Bone up, learn to be a dick.. and if all else fails spin some IT lingo and say it's the only way. The untold secrets of how to be an IT pro.

[hellow533]

^ Bone up, learn to be a dick.. and if all else fails spin some IT lingo and say it's the only way. The untold secrets of how to be an IT pro.

But then I wouldn't have made as much, I charged $50/hr, which was an extremely gross discount from our normal prices.

[LoGiCaL__]

These things are gonna happen, the thing you have to learn is that if the customer is happy with what you did then don't even worry about it anymore. You wanted to fix it correctly, she wouldn't let you, so move on to the next one. It was your first job, so I wouldn't expect much. Give it some time and you'll be in and out and have a routine down for several situations.

[tremor77]

Ah, I was under the assumption you were just a wage/salary guy.. if you're getting an hourly rate, by all means.. do it the long way!!!!