Internet services cut off

[The Outrage]

Is your Internet Service Provider allowed to suspend your internet access because you have a virus on your computer?

And are they allowed to threaten to cut off internet access for a much longer period of time if it were to happen again?

 

[Falconwing]

With the amount of virus's I know my neighbors get, it would seem that we don't have that issue. Neither do any of my relatives, since Dad is the computer nerd of the family. He'd got us pretty well protected here. Haven't had any issues in about a year.

 

[The Outrage]

I think it depended on the severity of the virus. My mom didn't want to buy another anti-virus since ours had expired, but she learned that our ISP provided a free one.

So we downloaded, it didn't help. Our internet was shut down because it detected a virus and the virus basically made the computer unusable.

What I find ironic was that the visible symptom of the virus was having Symantec pop-ups telling us to renew our anti-virus. To this day it makes me believe that the virus was left there by Norton >_>

Removing Norton from my computers have always left something horrible afterward.

 

[CLASSIFIED]

Viruses have always been a problem. My parents barely know how to fix the situation, which is why I always have to manualy search for the problem and correct it. The Anti-Virus program really does a poor job, way to spend your money, mom and dad.

 

[Barb]

I haven't heard of this, but some ISPs will cut off your service if you are downloading excessively (think movies and TV show episodes) each month.

 

[The Outrage]

I haven't heard of this, but some ISPs will cut off your service if you are downloading excessively (think movies and TV show episodes) each month.

They said it was because the virus was dangerous to their servers or something.

Also, I found this article of British ISPs doing that dating back to 2001. I guess it would be mentioned in their terms of service.

 

[TTEchidna]

What kind of virus are we talking, here? Something small, or something huge?

 

[Lil Brother]

No way, the exact same thing just happened/is happening to my family.

From the looks of things, one of our computers is infected by something our service-provided anti-virus program isn't picking up on, because said provider has been sending e-mails to us saying that we've been sending out spam to people for the last several weeks. It says suspension is a definite possibility:

End users often unknowingly contract viruses or other destructive
programs on their systems. These backdoor programs allow remote
attackers to conduct malicious activity on infected systems (such
as relaying spam e-mail through your computer). If you are
infected you will need to take necessary steps to clean your
system or we will have to take further action on our end, which
may result in the temporary suspension of your service until we
can be sure your system is cleaned.

And yesterday, our Internet connection was mysteriously cut off, but the browser said something about how rebooting the system with a certain password could restore things to normal. We were able to get back on earlier today when my dad returned from a business trip and told us the password, because we were all too dumb to bother clicking to see what the hint was. Whether this is a coincidence or not, I have no clue.

 

[The Outrage]

What kind of virus are we talking, here? Something small, or something huge?

Well, this was awhile ago and I don't remember the specifics. I imagine it was a pretty nasty virus because as soon as our ISP cut our service, it rendered our computer completely unusable.

Basically, the visual symptom was a bunh of Symantec pop ups which happened shortly after the removal of norton, surprisingly enough.

Yeah, is it wrong of me to blame Norton for this? I mean something bad always seems to happen after removing norton from any of my computers.

@Lil Brother
Don't think badly of me being a bit relieved that you're going through this aswell, but it makes me glad that this does seem like a common practice.

Though, I'm not sure whether I should be relieved or not. I also don't recall any advanced notice, but it probably went into one of my sister's seldom-used emails because my parents are computer illiterate.

Damn DSi typing :/

 

[TTEchidna]

It's why before you remove your antivirus program you pick out another one, download it, and then completely disconnect from the internet before uninstalling the first and installing the new one.

I personally use Avast, since it's free, and it's served me well. My parents, on the other hand, are complete idiots when it comes to computers and don't know how to do anything or are too scared to.

 

[The Outrage]

It's why before you remove your antivirus program you pick out another one, download it, and then completely disconnect from the internet before uninstalling the first and installing the new one.

I personally use Avast, since it's free, and it's served me well. My parents, on the other hand, are complete idiots when it comes to computers and don't know how to do anything or are too scared to.

Well, my mom didn't want to get a new one, I barely went on and my sister, despite the time she spent wasn't tech savvy.

And Norton was fairly annoying in the fact that it didn't let you install a new one unless you remove it first. Despite having the installation CD, the internet had to be connected aswell.

My sister still uses Norton. I used a free Malwarebytes on its own for awile with Windows Defender. I now use Avira's free editin aswell for real time protection and Malwarebytes is still on there since they don't seem to conflict.

 

[Pachy]

Avast! Home edition should be able to clean your machine right up. If you want something less active, try Spybot S&D. as it's got a resident scanner which can be disabled at startup (Making it an on-demand only scanner)