Did I get rid of it ?

**wonwinglo** · 22-11-2005

Had a frantic phone call today from a friend whom I had warned before about installing anti virus protection,apparently he was working away on line and something flashed on the screen very quickly,his computer froze for a few seconds and settled down,I told him to leave everything as it was before I came round to have a look,from what he explained it sounded like a nasty download trojan,those little things that seem to linger around some sites,now I had to do some quick thinking because from past experience these things settle at first in your temporary internet files and strike when next connected to the internet,he was lucky it had not worked straight away and I was reading him the riot act about not having any anti-virus installed,only idiots do things like that.
My question is this-Have I got rid of this virus by deleting all of his temporary internet files and trash bin? could it have lodged anywhere else or did I manage to catch it before it did some real damage ? he does not appear to have any further bother so was he just lucky this time ? He was marched around to the computer shop forthwith to buy some anti-virus.
Anyone else had one of these nasties at work ?

**John** · 22-11-2005

If it is a trojan it could be hiden anywhere, tell him to install a virus checker and scan his computer, the one I'm using at the moment is free and seems quite good it's called AVG and can be found here http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

Phoenix · 22-11-2005

there is a standalone virus scanner from mcafee called stinger

i would recomend running that too

**wonwinglo** · 22-11-2005

Thanks John,I have heard of this one,will pass on the information to the victim.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John

If it is a trojan it could be hiden anywhere, tell him to install a virus checker and scan his computer, the one I'm using at the moment is free and seems quite good it's called AVG and can be found here http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

Nigel.D · 22-11-2005

Just to be safe make sure he turns off system restore before he runs the check as the usual thing is that the virus will reside in those files as well

**wonwinglo** · 22-11-2005

*** Good point,never thought of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigel.D

Just to be safe make sure he turns off system restore before he runs the check as the usual thing is that the virus will reside in those files as well

Roy · 23-11-2005

I'd go with AVG free, one of the best AV programs out there, have used it now for two years and (touch wood) nothings got through. You might also want to consider running http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ this finds stuff that others normally don't.

**Bluewavestudios** · 23-11-2005

Barry,

Just deleting the items you mentioned won't kill it off, the main bits go into your registry and that is the hard part. Unless you know what you are specifically looking for, the registry is best left well alone but the virus/trojan can remain active if it is in the registry , there are programs out there that can sort them out for you just with a click of a button such as:

Ad-aware or Spybot Search and Destroy, Both are very good and highly recommended in all computer magazines (and free) and are superb for sorting trojans and some of the very difficult to remove spyware items....even where AVG has missed them (it does sometimes) I have all 3 of these running on my machine for security.

Regards......Mark

**wonwinglo** · 23-11-2005

*** Thanks Bluewave for this,I have ad-aware myself and am amazed at how much junk you collect when on the internet,every evening I must get rid of at least 20 items of spyware.
What puzzles me is why three different programmes can identify different things ? it must be the way that they are programmed initially.
Can you give me the kosha link to Spybot ( the one that you trust) as one source on the intyernet says that there is one version that is malicious itself,I need to get the right one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluewavestudios

Barry,

Just deleting the items you mentioned won't kill it off, the main bits go into your registry and that is the hard part. Unless you know what you are specifically looking for, the registry is best left well alone but the virus/trojan can remain active if it is in the registry , there are programs out there that can sort them out for you just with a click of a button such as:

Ad-aware or Spybot Search and Destroy, Both are very good and highly recommended in all computer magazines (and free) and are superb for sorting trojans and some of the very difficult to remove spyware items....even where AVG has missed them (it does sometimes) I have all 3 of these running on my machine for security.

Regards......Mark

**wonwinglo** · 23-11-2005

*** Roy,I tried to run that housecall,all that I get is the following legend- 'Housecall active x is not ready' what does this mean ? it just stops working at that point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roy

I'd go with AVG free, one of the best AV programs out there, have used it now for two years and (touch wood) nothings got through. You might also want to consider running http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ this finds stuff that others normally don't.