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"The virus that kills your computer!" Rumored Virus at my School.

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Yo guys, so today at my school I had a some what interesting class period. Upon arriving at my 3D Digital class we got a lecture that we "CAN NO LONGER CARRY OR USE A FLASH DRIVE ON SCHOOL CAMPUS".

My first thoughts were you have to be joking.

Turns out that my a guy who configures all of our computers at our school reported to all the teachers that "there is a virus that will infect flash drives. He is reporting that any computer with the virus will transfer it onto the flash drive then the virus on the flash drive once plugged into another computer will be transferred. Upon next boot up it will burn up the entire CPU and you computer will never work again".

The first thing I said was wow that we aren't going to fall for a joke like that. But then I realized he was being serious and actually believed this was happening.

Our school has all Mac computers and our specific lab has 29 Mac Pros. I still don't believe this is happening because he says its both PC and Mac. I have not heard any reports about this so my first thoughts are that this is not true.

Can anyone confirm this? And should I be worried?
 
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this is not true.

Can anyone confirm this? And should I be worried?
You are correct.

This is not true.

There is nothing for you to worry about.
If a virus for Mac OS X was to ever be discovered "in the wild", it would literally be front page news all over the world.

Your IT guy probably heard about the Newton "Virus".
If you read the information in the link, you will see that it is nothing at all like the 'threat' your IT guy describes.


Again, this is nothing to be worried about in any way, shape or form.
No such virus exists for OS X at this point in time.
 
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Yeah that is what I figured. when I was thinking about everything he said it didn't make sense. Why would a virus only effect flash drives. Plus how could it be both Mac and PC? I also thought if it was that big of a deal I would have heard something about it on the forums or from Apple themselves.

The funny thing is he said we have to use Email or Online storage to access our project files. Wouldn't that transfer the file the same way?

Weird.
 

dtravis7


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And how would this virus destroy the CPU? Change the motherboards clock multipliers and CPU Voltage and overheat the CPU?

:D
 
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The funny thing is he said we have to use Email or Online storage to access our project files. Wouldn't that transfer the file the same way?
Yeah... technically, that would be worse.

Your school's IT guys are amateurs.
Sounds like you go to one of the Art Institutes... most of their IT departments are clueless.

(As an Ai graduate myself, I am speaking from experience dealing with this "special" breed of IT.)
 
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Yeah... technically, that would be worse.

Your school's IT guys are amateurs.
Sounds like you go to one of the Art Institutes... most of their IT departments are clueless.

(As an Ai graduate myself, I am speaking from experience dealing with this "special" breed of IT.)

I am still in high school. I attend Natomas Charter Preforming and Fine Art Academy. I know the IT guy and he doesn't seem to know more than any other average computer user. Oh well haha.
 
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pft if they give you to much crap, use skydrive.
 
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And how would this virus destroy the CPU? Change the motherboards clock multipliers and CPU Voltage and overheat the CPU?

:D

Yeah seriously lol. I don't know about that one.
 
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The virus grows nanobots out of various motherboard metals. Once there is enough of a colony, they will remove the heat sink, open the ZIF socket and carry your CPU to another part of the computer case to start it on fire.
 
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I'm never plugging anything into my computer again... not even my charger. Nothing is safe...


Nothing.
 

dtravis7


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I'm never plugging anything into my computer again... not even my charger. Nothing is safe...


Nothing.

I wonder if they will report that the "MAC" has a MagSafe Virus from plugging in the power cord? :D
 
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dont worry- fake- no mac os x virus. If there ever was, id kill all Mac virus makers! lol

Dont worry, no mac viruses yet.
 
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Something similar happened at my school, right before they replaced the IT guy. lol
Nobody was really phased.... I mean, I know an old PII Gateway would be a terrible loss for my dear old high school....
 
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I can also relate to uneducated IT guys and there allusion of viruses.


P.A.: Attention students, we request that anyone using a computer please stop immediately and shut it down. A virus has been found on the computers and we need to get rid of it. Please make sure you don't plug-in any flash drives or get on the internet. It could spread the virus.

Me (being a little trouble maker, didn't attend my English class (mind that this is still high school and using Windows XP) sneaked into the nearest computer room and guess what I did.

I started a computer, logged into my "Self-made, self-configured account", opened Mozilla Firefox (I thought of opening Internet Explorer, but realised we'd get a virus no matter what I did). Then I plugged in my U3 Smartdrive (who doesn't own one?) run a "self-made program" and waited.

When it finished, no viruses or anything of harm came up, so I though they might have fixed it already, but decided to check the admin logs.

It turns out that the system administrator(s?) applied a system scan/clean and no one told the IT guy.
So naturally, he saw a program scanning the servers' hard drives and decided not to do a double-take and tried to stop it.

The funny thing is, he did stop it, but when the system administrator saw that he did, he(she?) assumed it was a virus and told the main office, who then told the IT guy who said he stopped the virus and I'm not sure what happened after that, for this information was handed down by word of mouth and a student nurse intern only hears so much.
 
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lol thats good.



And so begins the era of viruses for OS X... Yeaaa!!!!
 
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I just got an idea

What if all of us spread the word to all of the other forums we post on about the first virus ever made for Mac OS X?

We could say one of us made it and now it's starting to spread
and then we see how far it gets?
 

cwa107


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I just got an idea

What if all of us spread the word to all of the other forums we post on about the first virus ever made for Mac OS X?

We could say one of us made it and now it's starting to spread
and then we see how far it gets?

Let's not and say we did.
 
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Let's not and say we did.

+1. Thats like going into the police department, and yelling you killed the mayor, while holding a gun.
 

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