My ex-wife had her computer really hosed. We are really good friends still and I am still her goto tech support. It turned out that she had been running with no anti-virus software for 4 months. Her computer STOPPED me flat from installing it again.
I normally handle this easily by popping out the drive and putting it in a USB enclosure, mounting it as an external drive and running a full scan. It cleared like 60 viruses off the drive.
I popped it back into her computer, fired it up, installed new antivirus software. and then I made the mistake. Put it on my network to download new virus definitions. In the 5 mins that took, the malware hopped to the next machine on the network.
I am not going to mention the name of this virus. Because if you Google it one of the top ten hits will infect you with it.
--What did I miss?
8 comments:
Good to hear! For a bit there I was thinking something bad had happened.
I don't run Windows, except in a VM, because of this sort of thing.
holy crap.
um. here are my usual solutions for infected machines at work: Combofix (download it from bleepingcomputer - anything else isn't the real .exe) and SuperAntiSpyware.
try combofix. it will run in safe mode with networking.
download link for combofix: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/combofix
Here's MY usual solution for infected machines:
Yell at the box to see if the little magic elves will get back to work.
Tap on the side and the top of the box, then bang on it repeatedly.
Speak gently and imploringly to the elves. Offer to make a deal.
Get angry. Take the box in the backyard and stomp on it. Drop it in the fire pit.
Grab the car keys.
Go to Best Buy.
MSgt B, I'll be watching you closely at the blogshoot if you take a go with any of my gats.
If it's Windows, I like CCleaner.
Running Sophos on the Mac.
And I'm using Lookout on my Droid phone.
Hope this helps.
It's a root kit virus. The infected files are hidden in with the boot kernel of the operating system. Download one of Linux boot disks that have a scanner for root kits and boot the system off the CD you make. Let it scan and remove the core part of the underlying virus. Here's a link to a page full various options:
http://www.techmixer.com/free-bootable-antivirus-rescue-cds-download-list/
I fixed a system for a friend yesterday and used Avira that I downloaded from that page.
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