What Not to Do

Over at Broadband reports there is a thread that starts:
"my friend sent me a exe file he said scan this with my antivirus and then no virus so i open this file and two reg line came added this %sytemroot%\mgs.exe %sytemroot%\expolorer.exe to the start up and here the link to this file "

That's one of those things where I wanted to bust out laughing and beat my head against the computer at the same time.

Just to be clear:
1. Never run viral code unless you know what you are doing. That would typically include a test machine and maybe a test network. At least a good firewall to prevent yourself from infecting others.
2. Just because your antivirus doesn't detect on what you suspect to be a virus, that doesn't mean its a good idea to run it just to see what is done.
3. If you have a file you suspect is a virus, upload it to www.virustotal.com. That will scan it with several antivirus scan engines so you'll have a better idea of what is up.

Perhaps this guy did know what he was doing when he ran the code. It just sounded so odd the way he wrote that so I figured it was a good teachable moment.