KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar BluffMalicious programs could put child porn on your computer without you knowing it

Malicious programs could put child porn on your computer without you knowing it

By CJ Cassidy - bio | email

(KFVS) - You've heard of viruses that can steal your identity and your credit card information, but now one type of malicious software threatens to destroy your reputation by dumping child pornography images on your computer.

Computer experts say it can infect your computer in a number of ways through illegal web sites, file sharing programs and advertisements.

But as it turns out, you can still protect your good name if you suddenly find child porn images flooding your computer.

"The virus doesn't have a name per se," said Andrew Bard at Computer 21. 

He has not seen the virus firsthand. But he warns, it could already be on your computer.

"It's really a package these guys put together and they're trying to infect other computers so they can store this child pornography on other machines, and not on their own machines so they don't get caught."

Detective Trevor Pulley with the Cyber Crimes Task Force works on cracking a child porn cases.

"A lot of our suspects say I didn't do it. Someone else did it. This is a defense they've tried to use for several years. We have to go through and disprove it's not the virus it was actually that individual going in and downloading the images," Pulley said.

He adds that should be reassuring to anyone who finds themselves infected by the actual virus.  In fact, he says the chances are slim to none.

"We don't look at the files on the system, we look at the totality of the evidence. How the file was downloaded on the system, is the file saved on the system, is the file being manipulated, renamed, are there multiple files? A lot of suspects we deal with rename the files."

Det. Pulley says he's yet to take on a case where the virus helped clear someone's name, but he agrees with Andrew Bard you can protect yourself before you get infected.

"The individuals trading this, possessing these things, want to have access to these types of files. The other system's not turned on, don't have access to those images anymore."

"Getting virus software is a good start," Bard said.

He also suggests don't click on advertisements, or visit illegal web sites.  He says shut down your computer if you get a message you've been infected.

As far as signs your computer is infected - he says if it suddenly becomes very slow, or it boots up without warning, then you probably want to get it checked out by a professional.

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