Staff account compromise. What's happened and an apology.

[MDeckman]

In response to post #15471635.

I've got a tool for you to add to your arsenal that's missing. Grab an Anti-root kit tool.

[thehorn2000]

In response to post #15480500. #15481045 is also a reply to the same post.

''Wait, you drop your anti-virus software to play an online game that is connected to unknown persons?''

lol,what kind of question is that? my guess is that you've never experianced playing on such a high quality that you can't even afford to lose 1% of your system resource in order to reach a MINIMUM playble fps.
as far as i know,most gamers who know their way around taking the game engine to its maxiumum limit for high-end quality that the game itself(without additional acessories) cannot produce,usualy,don't have the strongest rigs,i personaly have a normal rig,my system specs are 5 years old,i have a normal hdd,a normal pair of 4gb ram memories,and a normal 2600-k intel cpu,and a rather down to below avrege 1gb AMD graphic thats outdated by 2 generations.
my skyrim folder is around 50GB,my character has been the same for the past 1 and a half years,i use over 500 mods,most of them graphic and enviorment related,i even use 2k skyrim textures,my avrage fps(due to Software and ONLY software changes,this means i don't overclock my system or use higher voltage for cpu or anything) is stable at 80 while using vsync,Realvision ENB with all its requirments,maximised skyrim configs,(grass is set to visible at 11000 distance/shadowmaskquarter is set to 4(highest)/shadow quality is set to 2K/and every other extream tweak you can imagine),and i also use tridef 3d and i play the game in 3d with OP sharpening that comes in conjuction with power-3d features that mix with enb.
this is possible trough windows,and software related techniques that i use to minimize the load that the system takes from anything other than the game itself.
its safe to say if i didn't make the tweaks,and if i for example left,AVG free version(winch really isn't soppoused to overload the system that much and usualy runs at 2% cpu usage)
the game would CTD on startup.
that being said,i can play over 10 hours in 3d with all the above configs without a single crash.
---------------------------
yes i do drop my Firewall(that comes with my antivirus),to play an online game that is connected to ''unknown persons???--no ofcourse not,i drop it to connect to rather safe game servers....''.

REASON for this is to increase ping-time,in guild wars or team matches where even a -10 lagitme could mean the diffrence between a bullet going trough your's or your enemies head,the diffrence between an enabled antivirus and a disabled antivirus,is toroughly visible. Edited June 10, 2014 by thehorn2000

[GenRabbit]

In response to post #15469890.

You obviously have no idea what terrorism is.(as known by most folks).

[MDeckman]

Thanks for the update and heads up. I've been reading the comments and some people are actually taking their security very seriously, which is a good thing. Others think they are and they aren't 100%. I'm going to share my experience here really quick with what i've found from 2008 till now.

 

Firstly: I've tested AVG, Avira, Avast, Kerspeky, Norton, McAfee and MSE. I tested them against this test virus http://www.eicar.org/86-0-Intended-use.html I tested them in 2008 and again in 2012. Four years is a very long time for the computer realm for viruses.

 

AVG - Not surprisingly as I encountered this behavior before with AVG, it wouldn't let me download it. I couldn't even browse the download page. Once I did finally manage to get the test file downloaded, i couldn't even begin the test as it removed it as soon as it was on the hard drive.

Avira - I had to tell it to scan the folder to find it.

Avast - I had to tell it to scan the folder to find it.

Kerspeky - was only available in 2012 for me and acted like Avast.

Norton/McAfee/MSE - I had to do a shell command and have it scan the file explicitly for it to find the test virus.

 

These results were identical in both tests 4 years apart. Now granted, I didn't do a thorough test, but the point of my test was this: if an anti-virus that is up to date with definitions and has been around since the early 2000s, shouldn't it be able to pick up a test virus that's been around since 1995?

 

Others have mentioned online gaming with the firewall: If your firewall is configured correctly (which you should be able to do since we're all adding mods, authoring mods and creating scripts for Skyrim and making all of them run nearly flawlessly, configuring a firewall is child's play) then you shouldn't have to disable it to play an online game. This includes the ping time. A properly configured firewall won't hinder ping time. It never has for me and I've got an internet speed of barely 400 kilobytes per second.

 

Anybody with Norton/McAfee, i suggest you dump it. Every computer I've come across that has had them installed i've had to spend literally hours cleaning. I said i'd keep it short and i'm trying so, with that i'm going to wrap up and say this for emphasis: this is from personal experience and from whom i've shared it with, it's worked wonderfully for. I haven't had an issue with a virus since I put on AVG's firewall and anti-virus. and that was in 2006.

Edited June 11, 2014 by MDeckman

[GenRabbit]

In response to post #15462835. #15463215, #15463975 are all replies on the same post.

They don't have to be an exe. They can also be .vbs, .bat, .com, .pif. (more obvious ones would be .jar and .msi). There are more likely others. .DLL aswell. But this one needs something else to load it. attacking thru SKSE is one way. But in and by itself is pretty harmless.

[PPWinner]

Thanx for ure quickness !! You're doing a great job on Nexus. Hourray for all the staff members, keep up the good job. Edited June 10, 2014 by PPWinner

[bben46]

My guess is the fake Java that is being seen on German advertising is not related to our hack. The fake Java is not just on Nexus sites, but on other German language sites as well - and is much more professional than our script kiddie hacker.

[FNVNuke180]

In response to post #15460745.

Agreed!

[ADragonCalledGeorge]

In response to post #15480995. #15481145 is also a reply to the same post.

Thanks! I was always wary of Norton as I never paid for my antivirus before. I always got the free stuff. But that never worked. Then I tried Kaspersky which was okay for a time. But with new computers came new viruses and so far, only AVG seems competent enough to keep me safe. That and Addblock. I am at peace...for now!

[thehorn2000]

In response to post #15481740.

well guess what,i got an adsl2+ with barely over 128kb.
and the ping-time you get is not just based on speed,its based on location,and im far east,and the servers im playing on are far west,soOoOo a properly configured firewall,or whatever,still impacts me somewhere around 6 times as you.
winch meaNS,eighter i dump my firewall and antivirus and let the trojans attack and manualy fight against them using windows as my strongest defense,or i go sit down and play some strategic non-live game that looks pathetic to me.

Also,great advice on dumping the macaffee/norton,i would also suggest dumping nod32 if you have it,its a resource monster and not very effective eighter.(i know for fact that some ransomwares can disable it even if its active when the attack is made)

btw im still waiting for the part where you point out the parts where i wasn't 100% correct...maybe i could learn from you? Edited June 10, 2014 by thehorn2000