Strange Virus

[matm347]

I let my GF borrow my laptop as she was without hers after quitting a job that allowed her to use one.
Anyway, I get it back and it's actin' up..not wanting to shut down, quite sluggish, etc.. I scan for spyware with spybot s&d as well as ad-aware. The "normal" amount comes up and is cleaned. I also do a virus scan with NOD32 and it comes up with the picture shows. An infected file that does not exist.

I've searched for the exact virus name and the only thing that comes up is NOD32's virus update page.

Any suggestions??

[PrairieDawg]

Re: Strange Virus

Do you have your folder options set to "show hidden files and folders"?

[matm347]

Re: Strange Virus

Do you have your folder options set to "show hidden files and folders"?

Yes.

[PrairieDawg]

Re: Strange Virus

Might be worth getting a second opinion by downloading and running AVG or using one of the online virus scanners. A-Squared is a decent trojan hunter you might also take a look at. http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

[casecutter]

Re: Strange Virus

In the future, be sure to set up your lappy properly for your GF to use it. Make sure she does not have an admin account and tell her not to click on every popup and open every file she gets in unknown emails. I have yet to get a virus/trojan on my PC in over 4 years mostly because I use common sense when surfing the net. When I go to places I shouldn't, I always turn up the protections to max and never click on areas of the screen I shouldn't.

All that said, if it is a particularly nasty bug, time to break out the restore disks or reinstall windows after a nice long format.

[matm347]

Re: Strange Virus

I thought a second opinion would be a good idea as well..I'm downloading AVG as I type.

I thought about giving her a restricted account, but she seemed savy enough and her work computer was fine before it went back...lesson learned though.

[casecutter]

Re: Strange Virus

She probably felt more comfortable to do zany things since it was your PC. Believe me, I am not trying to insult her or you. But some people sometimes click on stuff they know they shouldn't and that is all it takes. I still say just get all your important data off of it and use the Dell Restore program/disk and just return it to the state you bought it. Removing virus'/trojans is just so damn hard and I always take the easy way out myself (reformat/reinstall).

[matm347]

Re: Strange Virus

Yeah, I gave her the whole spyware/virus lesson....she knows better now(after she lost her unsupervised CPU privileges!)

But AVG found it and said it deleted it.. Why NOD32 couldn't simply delete it I don't know. I'm scanning again with NOD to see if it still comes up.

Luckily, I've not yet had to reload my laptop(knocks on wood). I'm decent at keeping my computers clean.

[casecutter]

Re: Strange Virus

Excellent!!! If you ask me, AVG is the best out there at the moment. The only one I trust.

[matm347]

Re: Strange Virus

It is a little slower compared to Nod...but what good is Nod if it can't get rid of the Virus??....AVG is what I'll be using now.

[Kheldar]

Re: Strange Virus

ok
imho this was probably a rights issue - some virus's change the ownership of the file so even admin users can't see the file, you have to turn off simple filesharing to even start to see this occuring. once you've turned off simple files sharing you can get into the advanced properties of the file and you can adjust its security and ownership (different things) of files.

Obviously AVG has the ability to take ownership of files so it can check them for virus's

thats my theory anyway

personally what you should be doing now is backing up all your data and do a fdisk of your system (delete the partition, recreate, format of your HD) and reinstall your system.

While you've removed the virus, its already done (potentially) its damage and opened up a hole in your system for the virus writer to get control of your pc.

if you do any online banking - change your passwords