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Hello all,
I recently had an experience with a computer that I was asked to clean a virus from so I thought I would make a post to show my steps and findings.
Computer Spec's
800 Mhz Pent 3
256 mg ram
9 gig HD
Windows 98 se
The Status of the computer when it was given to me was pretty bad, Norton AntiVirus Pro 2003 had expired some time ago and had not been updated. It had failed to keep the Virus's from infecting the computer in its currant state. The status of Norton's AntiVirus was Expired and Email protection was off, auto update was off, and it would not complete a scan, like I said, messed up.
I decided to remove it first and start from scratch with another AntiVirus Software, but First I needed to clean the system out.
This person (in my honest opinion) used poor judgment in the selection of their ISP with my Least favorite of all AOL. This is more then likely the main cause of 95% of there trouble.
The first step I took was to install Spy Sweeper by Webroot, I had an older version of this software handy v 3.50 that I bought back in December of 2004 from Newegg.com for $15, I installed it and ran a sweep, It found and cleaned over 500 adware programs off the system, wow right? But it's not over....
The next step I did was to Buy a new version of Spy Sweeper by Webroot version 4.0.something I think, with a build date closer to currant and I ran that and it found and cleaned another 107 adware programs from the system , so in one year's time or less you could assume there were quite a few new adware programs that the older spy sweeper did not recognize.
Now that all the Adware had been removed and The browser was no longer Highjacked and redirecting the computer to some porn site, I decided to give the Totally free Antivirus software called AVG a try and I downloaded and installed the currant version of that from their website.
I ran the scan after the install was complete and AVG found 2 Computer Virus's that Norton had Over looked and removed them, Plus another 22 Trojan Virus's! I was very pleased with the AVG, in my opinion it performed quite well and removes Trojan's as well as Virus's, Norton AntiVirus seems to work ok when its kept currant and up to date but even then It dose not take notice of Trojan's.
Adware gets into your system and redirects your browser ( pop ups ) to sites you would not normaly visit, this in turn give's you Trojan Virus's and once you have them the next step is real virus's! As was the case with this computer. It normally dose not take very long for a system to snowball like this if your system is not protected. I have a few more tip's on keeping your computer secure and trouble free on my main site page, in the Security section.
This Computer is typical of many others I have repaired for other people with respect that it was rode hard and put away wet!
Virus totals:
607 adware
22 Trojan Virus's
2 standard Virus
Pretty bad shape but I returned this unit to the person after this and it was working smoothly again, but for how long I don't know, with an ISP like AOL I'm sure it will be infected with more adware shortly, However I feel confident that the AVG will at least help to keep the Trojan's and Virus's from snowballing the system into this kind of shape again.
myke
I recently had an experience with a computer that I was asked to clean a virus from so I thought I would make a post to show my steps and findings.
Computer Spec's
800 Mhz Pent 3
256 mg ram
9 gig HD
Windows 98 se
The Status of the computer when it was given to me was pretty bad, Norton AntiVirus Pro 2003 had expired some time ago and had not been updated. It had failed to keep the Virus's from infecting the computer in its currant state. The status of Norton's AntiVirus was Expired and Email protection was off, auto update was off, and it would not complete a scan, like I said, messed up.
I decided to remove it first and start from scratch with another AntiVirus Software, but First I needed to clean the system out.
This person (in my honest opinion) used poor judgment in the selection of their ISP with my Least favorite of all AOL. This is more then likely the main cause of 95% of there trouble.
The first step I took was to install Spy Sweeper by Webroot, I had an older version of this software handy v 3.50 that I bought back in December of 2004 from Newegg.com for $15, I installed it and ran a sweep, It found and cleaned over 500 adware programs off the system, wow right? But it's not over....
The next step I did was to Buy a new version of Spy Sweeper by Webroot version 4.0.something I think, with a build date closer to currant and I ran that and it found and cleaned another 107 adware programs from the system , so in one year's time or less you could assume there were quite a few new adware programs that the older spy sweeper did not recognize.
Now that all the Adware had been removed and The browser was no longer Highjacked and redirecting the computer to some porn site, I decided to give the Totally free Antivirus software called AVG a try and I downloaded and installed the currant version of that from their website.
I ran the scan after the install was complete and AVG found 2 Computer Virus's that Norton had Over looked and removed them, Plus another 22 Trojan Virus's! I was very pleased with the AVG, in my opinion it performed quite well and removes Trojan's as well as Virus's, Norton AntiVirus seems to work ok when its kept currant and up to date but even then It dose not take notice of Trojan's.
Adware gets into your system and redirects your browser ( pop ups ) to sites you would not normaly visit, this in turn give's you Trojan Virus's and once you have them the next step is real virus's! As was the case with this computer. It normally dose not take very long for a system to snowball like this if your system is not protected. I have a few more tip's on keeping your computer secure and trouble free on my main site page, in the Security section.
This Computer is typical of many others I have repaired for other people with respect that it was rode hard and put away wet!
Virus totals:
607 adware
22 Trojan Virus's
2 standard Virus
Pretty bad shape but I returned this unit to the person after this and it was working smoothly again, but for how long I don't know, with an ISP like AOL I'm sure it will be infected with more adware shortly, However I feel confident that the AVG will at least help to keep the Trojan's and Virus's from snowballing the system into this kind of shape again.
myke