Virus on N900?
 

Hey guys, first i need to apologize for my english.

So, i have a little problem im my N900. My mom uses my computer for work and she got a spyrawe or virus, dont know exactly what it is, but all my folders, like .documents ou .sounds are no longer folders, but a .exe. If i try to delet or format my N900, this .exe coming back. I can use my N900 normally but i cant take any pictures and my N900 says: "memory inaccessible, was not possible to store the contents".


Some one can help me? thx alot and apologi for my english again

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Well, your best chance to get rid of it radically is to reflash your n900 (fiasco and emmc)
here is the procedure :
http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

make sure to follow exactly what it says, especially when flashing the emmc (with vanilla)

Re: Virus on N900?
 

run antivirus software on it or format the disk on windows. The virus wont spread beyond the fat partitions.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Can't you delete the virus using the terminal? or is the N900 bricked? It sounds like it's a Windows virus, it only runs when you plug the N900 to a Windows computer that either is already infected or has autorun enabled for removable storage devices.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

A Windows virus can't run on your N900, but it does sound like it has infected the main storage (the bit that shows up when you connect your N900 to a computer). If you don't have anything you need to save you can just format it.

To format this part of your N900:
1. You need the rootsh package installed so you can get root access to your N900.
2. Open a terminal (you can use the Ctrl-Shift-x shortcut) and type "root" to become root
3. Unmount the "MyDocs" partition, type in "umount /dev/mmcblk0p1"
4. Format it, type in "mkdosfs -F32 /dev/mmcblk0p1"
5. Re-mount it, type in "mount /dev/mmcblk0p1"

WARNING: This will wipe ALL the data you have stored on that part of your N900 such as music, videos, photos, etc. So make sure you have anything important backed up. It will leave intact all installed applications, and most (if not all application settings), some applications do store data there though. Do this at your own risk, it should solve your problem, but I'm not sure if the standard disrectories that apps expect to be there will be created automatically or not.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

This is precisely one of the major reasons I (and I'm sure many/most others) have strongly considered (or already did) re-format the eMMC with something not M$-compatible. I haven't done it, but this is just a reminder to me--and should be to everyone else--that perhaps it's time to do it, and do sharing with something that doesn't keep the executable perms or the like (is there a way with Samba et al?).

Re: Virus on N900?
 

It definitely wouldn't hurt wouldn't hurt to take storkus' advice. If you format it as an ext2 or ext3, Windows software won't know how to run on it. The bad side, however, is that Windows would no longer know what it was looking at when you plug it in via USB, so no mass storage. But SSH and WinSCP fixes that pretty well.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

A bit useless. The right solution would be to simply not connect the N900 to untrusted hosts, and more importantly, not enabling mass storage mode when connected to an untrusted host.

A Windows virus could destroy all of your ext3 partition even if it did not understand it.

I am wary if reflashing is the best option considering the host PC is probably already infected. The best option would be to either trash the host PC or get a proper antivirus and/or operating system.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Yeah but how many Windows viruses are out there to destroy NOT-Windows? Like, maybe four. As possible as it may be, we gotta think realistic.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

But it makes it a pain to connect to the computer, you could use ext2ifs so Windows can read it, but then once Windows can read the filesystem a virus can infect it. So you might as well just not bother to connect it.

In my experience even when you only use Linux using regular Linux filesystems for removable storage is a pain because of permissions.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Try connecting the n900 to the computer and running antivirus and anti spyware programs. Make sure that when using the programs the n900 is included in the scans.
Personally I would use:
AVG free - http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage

and

Spybot search and destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html

Re: Virus on N900?
 

They don't have to be designed specificly for non-Windows file systems, with all the non-standard ways to read and write to drives they can come up with to avoid certain types of detection, and considering virus makers usually don't care for keeping the user's data and hardware safe, the odds of viruses ****ing up your non-windows partitions isn't small at all.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Disable autorun on all computers. I believe windows 7 has that disabled by default. That's how viruses execute themselves when you plug-in your flashdrive.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Right, but 99.999% of malware written for windows is made to attack Windows. You gotta think realistically, although it's possible, it just generally doesn't happen.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Windows permissions are a pain, too.

Is there any single OS in the world which:
1. has only one user, with only one password;
2. before allowing a program to read/write to a file/directory, asks user and then writes down permissions for this program (with hash and full path of the program, so that when the program is modified/infected/updated/moved to another directory, the user is asked about all the permissions again).

Thus, it would be not files which have different permissions; it would be programs which have different permissions.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Some weeks ago i read about this technique that exploited a flaw in the way Windows deal with program icons that was being used to run a virus even when the the user did nothing but open the folder where it was stored. Autorun isn't the only alternative, you can never really be 100% secure.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

I'm to tall for this actually
me being a actor on tv

Re: Virus on N900?
 

hi all,
i am not an expert in mobile or computer tecnology
i am using n900 and yestrday i downloaded some datas and podcasts. my n900 working very very slowly after this. i have also installed some softwares to it.
now i am facing a big problom.
i think my mobile affected by virus.
is there any anti virus for n900.
please send me details in step by step
please send me link too
mails2aju@gmail.com
i am waiting for your help

Re: Virus on N900?
 

how can i formate my n900...
what will hapens to my already installed softwares like flashlight,gpodder,games ets by formating

Re: Virus on N900?
 

[Edit] This is a very old thread which has been restarted. Please post your problem in a new thread to prevent misinformation from previous posts.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Your N900 has not got a virus.

If you want to 'format' your N900 you need to 'flash' it. Yes, you will loose all your installed apps.

See here: http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_firmware

Re: Virus on N900?
 

hey
my mobile n900 working slowly and sometimes hanging
i think it affected by virus
how can i escape from this problom

Re: Virus on N900?
 

is there any other way to make my n900 working normaly without losing my already installed apps....
my problom is it works slowly and sometimes hanging

Re: Virus on N900?
 

Not a virus. But please use a new thread instead of hijacking this one.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

There are no viruses for the N900. Check your CPU usage from using `top` in xterm and check which process is consuming the most.

Virus are a self propagating software. There has only been a few for Linux in the past 20 years. Malware is very much a Windows (and now Mac OS X) thing.

Re: Virus on N900?
 

The platform that is a little difficult widespread interest in creating virus.

But using the packages sudo rootfs and greatly facilitates the work of executing malicious code.