Keyloggers >.<

[djpostman1]

Being an avid MMOG gamer im deathly afraid of keyloggers. Its never really been an issue until i started play WoW, whos forums are ripe with malacious links. I did a few weeks ago, not knowing, paste one of the links into my browser on my work PC. shortly after ive pulled the plug on the internet, scanned scanned scanned and scanned, and didnt end up with anything. a few days later after i scanned i did come up with a few items (nothing very teminal though). The same thing happened this morning. I hit a questionable link on friday, disconnected and scanned with several programs and come up with nothing, but this morning when we i scanned with malwarebytes i came up with hijack.homepage and hijack.startmenu. My work PC is running the Trend Micro client/server, i scan with malware pretty often. home PC runs mcafee (which is going away soon, not worth the money imo) and malware bytes and ad-aware.

so my question is, do keyloggers take a while to show up, or activate themselves? ive been changing my pw's every few days just to be safe, but it really a pain in the a** with 2 games, forum, bank accounts, ebay, amazon, paypal etc etc. i hope i wont have any future problems, but if something as far as keyloggers are there malware should pick it up right away?

[exile360]

Grettings dpostman1 and welcome to the forum. Those malicious links and keyloggers are certainly a big risk because they equal big money for the thieves. The 2 items you found when you scanned with Malwarebytes' weren't keyloggers though, luckily. To answer the question about keyloggers themselves though, no, they will typically show up right away unless they get downloaded by a trojan that installs through a malicious site or link and if you disconnect as soon as it gets in there is at least a small chance that you prevented it from downloading any other malware to your system. Also, if you want a recommendation to replace McAfee, I would recommend Avira (free), Avast (free), Kaspersky (paid) or NOD32 (paid), as they all will be much more effective than McAfee. I would also recommend you get a good firewall. Comodo is excellent (and free) and ZoneAlarm (free) is descent. And if you're using Vista and want something simple and light I'd recommend Vista Firewall Control by Sphinx. It's also a good idea to use tools like Spybot Search & Destroy to utilize the immunize feature as well as Spywareblaster as they don't run in the background but passively block many malicous sites and links in both IE and FireFox. A good hosts file wouldn't hurt either like HPHosts or you can use a simple tool like HostsMan, they basically block bad sites in the same way as Spybot and Spywareblaster. I hope I've been helpful. Good luck and safe surfing.

[djpostman1]

Grettings dpostman1 and welcome to the forum. Those malicious links and keyloggers are certainly a big risk because they equal big money for the thieves. The 2 items you found when you scanned with Malwarebytes' weren't keyloggers though, luckily. To answer the question about keyloggers themselves though, no, they will typically show up right away unless they get downloaded by a trojan that installs through a malicious site or link and if you disconnect as soon as it gets in there is at least a small chance that you prevented it from downloading any other malware to your system. Also, if you want a recommendation to replace McAfee, I would recommend Avira (free), Avast (free), Kaspersky (paid) or NOD32 (paid), as they all will be much more effective than McAfee. I would also recommend you get a good firewall. Comodo is excellent (and free) and ZoneAlarm (free) is descent. And if you're using Vista and want something simple and light I'd recommend Vista Firewall Control by Sphinx. It's also a good idea to use tools like Spybot Search & Destroy to utilize the immunize feature as well as Spywareblaster as they don't run in the background but passively block many malicous sites and links in both IE and FireFox. A good hosts file wouldn't hurt either like HPHosts or you can use a simple tool like HostsMan, they basically block bad sites in the same way as Spybot and Spywareblaster. I hope I've been helpful. Good luck and safe surfing.

you have been very helpful, i appreciate the prompt response. I do have the mcaffe firewall on my mcafee suite, but in all honesty im not sure what good its doing. i've had items picked up by windows firewall that mcafee never sees. Ill look into the software that you've mentioned, thanks

[Tech0utsider]

If your an avid gamer then you need Norton AntiVirus Gaming Edition 2009.

[GT500]

If your an avid gamer then you need Norton AntiVirus Gaming Edition 2009.

No, you need an anti-virus that' more efficient, like almost all of them.

[djpostman1]

No, you need an anti-virus that' more efficient, like almost all of them.

im not a big fan of norton, and same with mcafee (the last draw for me was them installing a search bar on IE with the last update. i have enough damn search bars)

ive been told by a few fellow gamers that AVG is a pretty good one. i just need to sot down and have a look at my options.

[exile360]

Yes, AVG isn't bad, but I prefer Avast or Avira (both have free versions) as they tend to have better detections of newer infections and are light on resources, and if you're willing to pay, I'd go with Kaspersky, Avira Premium (more protection than the free version), or NOD32.

[GT500]

We recommend AntiVir from Avira. Their free protection is great, and their paid protection is even better (it typically tops the list in comparative tests).