Memory card virus issue - need help please!

[Princess Pwr]

Last weekend I went to erase some extra SD cards that my father in law gave me. I put the card into my laptop so I could copy any photos he may have left on there. As soon as I popped it in an autorun process began disabling my antivirus and installing a virus on my harddrive. I pulled the card out as soon as I realized what was happening.. I finally managed to get the virus off the laptop and threw away the SD card, but today I went to use the camera and now my "go to" SD card and my back up "go to" card both seem to have issues where the camera says the cards are full when they are not. Now when I take the cards and try to find the images say in Photoshop, it shows the folders as DCIM.exe and doesn't recognize them folders. I can see them in explorer and can see them on the camera itself, so the files are on the cards. Now I am concerned that something was written to the camera itself (if that is possible) and it is going to keep posing problems.

Anyone else had issues like this?

[Rson]

Camera's won't get viruses....but the MIGHT propagate one. I would format each card in the camera, it you can, exchange them at the store you got them for new ones.

[Charles Putnam]

Also...what antivirus is on your computer? Sounds like one that isn't updated regularly to prevent stuff like this.

[Princess Pwr]

I have McAfee, and the bug stopped the AV before the AV could stop it. I think that's what frustrated me the most, I'm decent with the computer side of things, but I honestly never thought about getting anything from a card. It makes technical sense that it could happen, but I have just never heard about anyone experiencing it. I ran the virus scan on the laptop this morning, formatted the card (twice for good measure) and am getting ready to take some shots this morning. So we will see what happens...

[Charles Putnam]

Unfortunately, McA-Flees isn't all that good. IMHO, neither is Norton. For paid AV, Kaspersky is one of the best. For free, Avast or Microsoft Security essentials.

Chances are the virus was transferred to your father-in-law's SD card when he put it in a computer that was infected. It lays there in wait for another host to screw up.

Rich's recommendation to format the card in camera is spot on and the best way to go. From there, I'd really recommend switching antiviruses to something better. Be warned though - removing every trace of McAfee can be difficult. Check their website for a possible removal tool. From there, run a deep scan with whatever you go with. Hopefully this virus hasn't damaged the OS. And...make sure you back up all your data.

[lfmerrell]

Way back in the 90s a son-in-law sand a sister would use my Mac as a virus filter. Don't ask they are the techies. The mac at time would open and save windows/dos files the Intel boxes couldn't open. Occasionally the would mail text files the then Mac email would open and save. Not every time but often.

At that time there were open any .whatever format/file programs.

Just a thought.

[TXAvi8tor]

Originally Posted by Charles Putnam

Unfortunately, McA-Flees isn't all that good. IMHO, neither is Norton. For paid AV, Kaspersky is one of the best. For free, Avast or Microsoft Security essentials.

Chances are the virus was transferred to your father-in-law's SD card when he put it in a computer that was infected. It lays there in wait for another host to screw up.

Rich's recommendation to format the card in camera is spot on and the best way to go. From there, I'd really recommend switching antiviruses to something better. Be warned though - removing every trace of McAfee can be difficult. Check their website for a possible removal tool. From there, run a deep scan with whatever you go with. Hopefully this virus hasn't damaged the OS. And...make sure you back up all your data.

Charles' recommendations are spot on. I'd also download and run the free version of MalwareBytes. It's very good at digging out hidden malware - rootkits, spyware, virii, etc.

[TXhummer2]

I have found that both Malwarebytes and superantispyware are needed to dig deeper for getting some nasty viruses out.

SUPERAntiSpyware.com | Remove Malware | Remove Spyware - AntiMalware, AntiSpyware, AntiAdware!

Both yours and your f-i-l's computer should be checked again.