Computer Viruses and You: How to Remove and General Avoidance Guidelines

[GTOJOE]

I just bought a Mac. No need to be in here.

Scotty

You Idiot should have emailed me and I could have got you a deal on a real computer. Combofix then malwarebytes then spyware doctor seems to work well for me.

[Zaroth]

Do either of you IT guys know how to fix issues related to "windows rot?"

I try to take care of system with CCleaner, Mb, Spybot, and smart browsing. It just seems like once a year or so things seem to get a little sluggish and just recently the internet is somewhat intermittent (loose connection at random times). I end up just reloading the OS to the hard drive partition and the system seems to be good to go for a year or so. I'm running a moderately stripped down version of XP.

Any advice? Great write up by the way.

Your doing everything except defrag. It will help with the sluggish issue you are having. Over time your windows system files get spread out over the disk and not only are the fragmented, which makes them take longer for the disk to collect them, but they get spread out further on the disk platter adding even more time. To help prevent that, next time you install your OS, format the whole disk, then partition a 30-40gig section just for the OS. This will make sure your OS always runs on the outer edge of your hard drive platter and will help your access times stay in check. Partition the rest of the disk for data and when you install programs, install them to the D drive(data partition) instead of the C drive( your OS partition).

For defrag I use defraggler. It's made by the same people that make CCleaner.

[DocWalt]

Man, every PC in the house except mine just picked up the System Tool virus. Not sure how avast didn't catch it on my dad's pc, it caught it on mine. My idiot brother let his avast registration expire a year and a half ago, so of course, it was outdated and wasn't protecting anything. I can't even get software to run to fix it, not even in safe mode. This is gonna be brutal

[GTOJOE]

Load in safe mode with networking and run Combofix.

[sketch]

I just bought a Mac. No need to be in here.

Scotty

Never heard of this Daniel Tosh character. And I dont really know computers or Macs for that matter. I know Macs aren't invincible, but I have heard as far as viruses go, they are better. Actually I've heard they dont get viruses from most people but I dont fully believe that. Having said that, I'm not running any anti virus software as the reps all told us it's not needed.

Scotty

Correct. Mac OS (and linux operating systems) just have far, far, far fewer viruses target at them, thus far fewer infections.

[sketch]

Man, every PC in the house except mine just picked up the System Tool virus. Not sure how avast didn't catch it on my dad's pc, it caught it on mine. My idiot brother let his avast registration expire a year and a half ago, so of course, it was outdated and wasn't protecting anything. I can't even get software to run to fix it, not even in safe mode. This is gonna be brutal

Do you have a clean desktop computer available? If you do, I'd suggest pulling the drives from the infected systems, plugging them into the clean desktop as secondary drives and using that desktop to clean them. Start out with checking avast for updates and then running a boot-time scan on the infected drive(s).
MBAM/SAS would be a good follow-up. Clear out the quarantines, download the latest combofix executable to each of the infected drives, plug the drives back into their respective systems boot to safemode and run combofix. (XP only: be sure to install the recovery console if you dont have that installed on each machine. i would suggest doing that from windows disc, rather than downloading the files.)

disconnect everything infected

LMK where you end up, doc!

[DocWalt]

I've already cleaned one PC, my brother's PC has about twenty viruses at once. It's got a rootkit that avast can't do anything about. It keeps picking up the *.sys file that it's making, and deletes it, but it's back on every boot. I have a few clean PCs, so I'll end up doing exactly what you're saying if I can't get combofix to run. I'm gonna try f-secure blacklight as well, I've never had great luck with it, but it's worth the try. I don't want to risk my main desktop for a PC that is barely used.

[sketch]

I've already cleaned one PC, my brother's PC has about twenty viruses at once. It's got a rootkit that avast can't do anything about. It keeps picking up the *.sys file that it's making, and deletes it, but it's back on every boot. I have a few clean PCs, so I'll end up doing exactly what you're saying if I can't get combofix to run. I'm gonna try f-secure blacklight as well, I've never had great luck with it, but it's worth the try. I don't want to risk my main desktop for a PC that is barely used.

bah rootkits. you may need to rename the combofix executable (some of these newer viruses will block it from running while it is named combofix.exe)
also check out rootkit revealer (see if you can get that to run, disable any other running AV on that machine)

[DocWalt]

Good thing to try. At least then I could google up some info, as of now, until I figure out which virus it is, I can just hope for a removal tool to find it and kill it. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll let you know how it goes after I mess with it tonight.

[zelstin]

Any guesses on what would cause IE, Firefox, and Chrome to shutdown? I'm gonna run Combofix but I don't think its a virus.

Edit: Was a virus and now it dead