Windows 10 Edge Attack

[floppybootstomp]

On Wednesday morning I switched my Win 10 computer on for the day and was greeted with an unfamiliar screen . The resolution was lower, my desktop image had disappeared to be replaced by plain blue and there were several warning windows showing.

The warnings told me an unknown application had failed and other programs had replaced them. Shutting the warning windows, closer inspection revealed that Win 10's 'Edge' program had taken over just about everything. I could access some things like Control Panel but on opening 'This PC' only my BluRay Drive showed, the other three hard disks did not show.

Courageously stifling the surging sensations of panic I reasoned I'd likely been nobbled by a virus or Malware so sat there thinking. And thought some more. Made some more coffee - strong - and exercised the grey matter further.

Eventually reached a decision - I rebooted. And when the computer started again all was as it should be, all back to normal.

I still have not a clue what happened or why but it did make me realise a few things and some questions presented themselves.

1) Should I should make another backup with Acronis True Image software, the last one was in July?
2) What would happen if for some reason my hard disk crashed and also the hard disk with the Win 10 backup on it?
3) How would I get another copy of Win 10 as this is the first Microsoft OS I haven't had a hard copy of?
4) Do I need better AV software as I'm relying on Win 10's Defender?

So with this in mind I scanned my system with both Windows Defender and Malwarebytes and gained a clean bill of health.

I bank with Barclays online so I can get Kaspersky Antivirus for free but a few years back I didn't bother cos I couldn't find the download link on Barclays website. I had another look and things have changed, this time it was easy and I installed Kaspersky. This installation automatically disabled Windows Defender. It also put three icons on my desktop and I hate icons on the desktop, I have precisely zero of them, not even the recycle bin, that's in the start menu on my machine.

I have a trial version of Kaspersky but then I received an email telling me they'd confirm I'm a customer with Barclays then send me an activation code, fair 'nuff. Then I get a years worth of AV software for nowt.

I agreed that Kaspersky could collect data after carefully reading their terms, I thought why not, Microsoft do it without asking anyway. Kaspersky also asked me to update Adobe Air and Flash Player. Didn't have a clue what Air was so looked it up and thought ok, I'll have me some of those.

And my first scan with Kaspersky tells me I'm free of nasties.

And that's about it. Still a mystery why my machine booted to Microsoft Edge creeping all over my system like a slimy green tendril and I guess I'll never know how that came to be.

But it's alright now, as Paul Rodgers once warbled.

 

[Abarbarian]

He he , struggles to keep quiet.

The clever money keeps two full clones of an os. Say August's on one location, then , September's on another location. Then replace August with October's etc etc.

Also a daily or weekly backup of essential data rotating to the two previous locations.

May seem a load of hassle but once set up on a modern pc the weekly or monthly tasks should not take too long. You could set them to all be done overnight for instance. There are loads of tools you could use.

http://www.techradar.com/news/softw...kup-software-11-programs-we-recommend-1137924

 

[Ian]

Sorry Flops, I somehow missed this thread and only just spotted it now! I've got no idea what happened, but I primarily wanted to reply to say please please please make backups... You know that just questioning it has jinxed it .

1) Should I should make another backup with Acronis True Image software, the last one was in July?

Why not set up a regular schedule? If you've got Acronis, you could make differential backups that will be pretty zippy to perform. I've got a weekly backup set up on all our desktops and it has saved my bacon just a couple of months ago.

2) What would happen if for some reason my hard disk crashed and also the hard disk with the Win 10 backup on it?

If you're backing up to the same drive, then it's not going to be hugely useful if the worst happens - unless you need to recover a file or need to roll back because of a virus/malware. If the drive fails, then that's it gone. I'd stick it on an external drive or a separate disk. I think I've got a spare drive somewhere if that's any use (happy to post it!) - I think it's 640GB or 1TB.

3) How would I get another copy of Win 10 as this is the first Microsoft OS I haven't had a hard copy of?

Microsoft have a quite helpful media creation tool on their website - you can download the app and it'll allow you to make an ISO file, boot DVD or USB. It also uses the most recent version of Windows 10 and lets you choose which version you want to download:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

4) Do I need better AV software as I'm relying on Win 10's Defender?

I think you've made a good choice with Kaspersky, I've used Defender/Avira on PCs where I need a free solution, but always end up going back to Kaspersky on my main PC. It's also good at alerting to apps with vulnerabilities, a bit like "Secunia" - that feature can stop a lot of Flash/PDF exploits.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for the reply Ian. As can be seen by the pic below my Win 10 OS is on a small 250Gb SSD and my backups are on a 3Tb separate HDD. I do have a Win 10 backup file in Acronis TI format on the 3Tb disc but it did occur to me that if I lost both what would I do?

Thanks for the link to the ability to burn a Win 10 hard copy, I will do that, but how would I activate it? I'm guessing I'd enter my original Win 7 activation code as I changed from my Win 7 install to a Win 10 install. I won't call it an upgrade as I'm not really sure if it is or not

I suppose that's something I'm only going to find out if the worst happens.

The good thing about my current setup is that as my Win 10 OS is on a small SSD there's not much that changes with it as there's no media, games or data stored there, all that changes I suppose would be Microsoft updates to Win 10 and other upgrades such as Libre Office updates, Kaspersky database, Privateer new version and similar.

The size of my current Acronis Win 10 backup (standard compression) is 33GB so it would fit on a 64Gb memory stick which is probably a good idea to have as well as the backup on my HDD.

I still have no idea what drive D is, I think it's part of Win 10 on the SSD but is shown as a separate drive.

 

[Ian]

You can activate it using your old W7 key, it should work just the same . I've done this a few times now on my laptop.

If you set Acronis to do scheduled backups, it'll not be be noticeable in the background unless you're doing heavy gaming (at least in my experience). It should only take 10 mins or so on your machine.

 

[muckshifter]

... but how would I activate it?

you don't need to 'reactivate' Win 10 ... it knows (microsoft) that you had already activated Win 10 ... all you need to do is reinstall.

... and ...

if you want a "clean" install of Win 10, without all the phone home bloat-ware and 'stuff' then MS have the answer

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10startfresh