Thread: virusses

Queatrix did it.

Originally Posted by linuxdude

imo antivirus software slows down my computer hogging my resources as much as a virus itself. I prefer to be safe, and if I am doing something dangerous, I'll put one on temporarily. Does anyone agree with me?

As long as you're knowledgeable enough to know what is dangerous and what isn't ...

My suggestion...

startup the computer, dont run ANYTHING. If all the .exe files are infected your giving the virus another shot at multiplying with each and every file you run.

Then run the anti-virus software. It will run the virus routine most likely but once it does it should return control back to the program, which can then (hopefully) go about and clean it up, make sure you have the latest updates for whatever program your using.

If that doesnt work then go online and download an antivirus program if you can, or try googling your virus, if you don't know what it's called then type in what it says, something should turn up.

ANd be a bit happier! This could be worse, at least (as far as we know) it's not carrying a destructive payload.

Good luck

You're lucky, sounds like you might just have a TSR (does anyone even use that term anymore?). It probably just hooks into the shell and runs that message everytime an application is started. Try this:
1) Hit f8 on bootup and do a safeboot with command prompt
2) Skip loading of non-critical drivers
3) When windows boots, log into the admin account
4) Run taskmanager and see what processes are running
5) Now play "find what doesn't belong" until you find the virus' image
6) End the process
7)a) Run eventvwr.msc and check system events to see what went wrong when.
7)b) Do a windows search for the virus exe and any offenders (find any files that were created or modified within the time frame of the virus, time is a factor here) and delete them
8) Repeat for any suspicious files (have a Windows CD on hand)
9) Check your registry, start-up process and services (regedit, msconfig, and services.msc respectively)
10) Pray the virus maker wasn't a professional (doesn't sound like it is anyway)

I'm the know right now because I recently had to deal with a virus that set itself up hardcore on my system, modified system files, changed write permissions on itself and messed over my winsocks. I almost gave up and restored/reformatted, but then decided to welcome the challenge and 5 hours of DOS-ing, 6 hours of Registry tweaking and so forth later, I brought it back to its (somewhat) original state. Me: 4, Exploiters: 0, yes 4, all from the security weakness in IE6, which I've now upgraded to firefox, fool me once...
Happy Hunting!

Originally Posted by Queatrix

I know nothing about Linux...

Will it run on an IBM?

I'm just going to quote this for posterity