Topic: Virus/Tojan Help Please!!!

[Malc.]

The only problem with going down the Microsoft route is that most hackers target the company above all others. Of course, it is in Microsoft's best interest to ensure they are ahead of the game but it must be hard when you can only react to once a new threat is detected.

I'd loose Norton like a bad habbit George, your far better off with something like AVG as a free virus guard. Check out http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/ everything you need to know and more. Also check out Malwarebytes and it's forums, there some really knowledgeable lads and lasses on there.

[joshallen2k]

Definitely do not want to turn this into a platform/computer debate, but I've had a Mac for about 8 years now. Never had a virus/trojan (to my knowledge). Never had to reload data from backup.

On the other hand, I am reloading Windows / eradicating viruses / dealing with malware on my two teenage kids' pc's on a weekly basis...

-- Josh

[JerryM]

George,

ideally u'd have to google the blue screen txt to find out more but my 1st would be to use scandisk from from the xp install disc or xp boot disc or additional hard disc.

[chriswg]

8 years ago only proper geeks and graphic designers owned Macs. I totally agree they are much safer and a lot faster to run than windows computers, and they look amazing, but my problem has always been lack of compatibility for mainstream games and other software.

I'm sure any good Mac fanboy will have loads of statistics as to why that is no longer true (bootcamp, office mac e.t.c.) but when it comes to downloading games and lesser known applications Macs really struggle.

My sister bought a new Mac for around ?1500 recently. All she uses it for is emails and web browsing. Why??

[extrahotchillie]

Reset your computer to another date eg a day or two before the virus infected your machine it should work.

Best of luck

ECH

[gazman1976]

extrahotchillie is correct that defo works !!!!

[Malc.]

It would appear that I still have problems, thought it was too good to be true. Having shut the PC down for the weekend, I have returned to work today to find that the PC didn't shut down and two editor windows (Akelpad) open with Russian italics inplace of the usual file menu titles. After reboot all seemed normal but then when I came online using Firefox to view the forum, after several minutes the network was real busy. So it would appear that a backdoor has been created and accessed.

I have run the TDSSKiller and it has again found another route kit. I have rebooted an the route kit has been removed. I have now un-installed Firefox and deleted all of it's folders. I am browsing noe with Opera and and the network is stable with no activity.

At this point I do not know if I can trust that my PC is out of the clear. I am preparing back-ups with the intention of formatting my C: drive if things do not settle down.  It's now become a case of practicality and it simply isn't practical to spend another week trying to hunt this problem down.

Any further help or advice gratefully appreciated.

[chriswg]

Have you tried using Chrome as your browser? It might not cure your virus but it will speed up your browsing immensely.

Did you ever try a system restore? I'd do that before thinking about a complete format.

Another useful tip that might help you. There is a website called something like Experts Exchange (looks like expert sex change when you type it in lol). They usually claim to have the answers to all IT problems when you Google them, but they want you to pay to subscribe and see the answers. For some reason, if you view the page in Chrome you can scroll right to the bottom of the page and view all of the solutions without paying. To be fair they usually have very good answers to tough problems.

[Malc.]

I'll check that out Chris, thanks for that.

Sadly, I do not have system restore as I switched it off some time back. It had created a file that was taking up the best part of 60 percent of my drive and had become fragmented. It's a long story but I had to switch off system restore to resolve the problem. 

[JerryM]

Axe,

try Spybot Search & Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html). this i use for getting rid of most things.

going fwd have a look at PC Tools threatfire and firewall - these are prevention software and what i use.

on the point of re install u need to make sure the root is clean 1st using gmer. even re partitioning and formatting is sometimes not enough if the root is infected.