Author Topic: Virus & Malware Removal  (Read 42869 times)

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Offline Thor

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Virus & Malware Removal
« on: July 02, 2010, 11:26:53 PM »
The first thing to obtain via download from the internet is Malwarebytes Malware remover available at http://www.malwarebytes.org  Download the program, install it, upgrade it (for new definitions since its release). You can run this normally, but I recommend that it be run in Safe Mode (press F8 after Power On Self Test). The reason why is because some viruses hide in a part of the hard drive not accessible in the normal user/ admin mode.

Next, one of the many good anti-virus programs is Avast! It can be obtained from: Here Again, download it, install it, update it, register it (it requires registration for a free one year license) and run it. Again, Safe mode is your friend. ;)

Finally, because not everything catches everything, I would recommend that one go grab a copy of Spybot Search & Destroy spyware remover  Download it, install it, upgrade it and run it.

All of those SHOULD get rid of any nasty bugs that a person may catch. These are not guaranteed, but they are MY choices for virus removal tools.

Also, please note, one may need to boot into safe mode with networking (XP and newer) if the normal log on won't allow you to go to those sites. I'm pretty sure that Malwarebytes & Avast will install in Safe mode. Once installed they will run. A last chance effort may require you to download these programs from a different computer, burn them to CD (or DVD, if that's all you have) and run the install on the affected computer from the cd. You may or may not be able to upgrade them, but at a minimum, run them.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."- IBID

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Offline Revolution

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #1 on: July 02, 2010, 11:38:33 PM »
The information here is extremely valueble. MalwareBytes saved me a lot of trouble that I would have otherwise had to go the long way around the barn. I forgot to run it in safe mode, but it looks like I only had a few simple viruses. My computer is even faster. I love it.

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Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #2 on: July 03, 2010, 03:03:43 AM »
Malware Bytes, as mentioned is a good program to keep around and updated.  The virus you're dealing with is a tough one and there are two more progs I would recommend you download and run;

Super Antispyware

http://download.cnet.com/SuperAntiSpyware-Free-Edition/3000-8022_4-10523889.html

That one found several things Malware Bytes missed on a virus I was working on the other day.

Ccleaner

http://download.cnet.com/ccleaner/

That one will clean up several things including your registry.

This link is to a page that explains the virus you probably had.  There is a small program on there called rkill.com that you should download and keep on a flash drive.  The site will tell you what it does but basically because these 'Ransomware' progs won't let you run executables in many instances this installs and runs an executable from a web site and it kills all the processes the virus is running.  Handy tool to have;

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-security-tool

Hope that helps you.  Sounds like you may have gotten it but sometimes these things stay on for a bit .... hiding from you.

You can also search your hard drive for tssd.exe .... nasty bugger.

KC
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Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2010, 10:12:48 AM »
Thor, you might want to put that information about rkill over here too.

KC
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Offline rich_t

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2010, 10:32:49 AM »
Does anyone have any recommendations on a good registry mechanic?

Free if possible.
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Offline Thor

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2010, 11:22:18 AM »
Does anyone have any recommendations on a good registry mechanic?

Free if possible.

I don't know what you're looking for, but CCleaner finds broken keys and removes them. As for me, between "regedit" from the command line and CCleaner, those seem to work for me.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."- IBID

I AM your General Ne'er Do Well, Troublemaker & All Around Meanie!!

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."-Thomas Jefferson

Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2010, 01:02:26 PM »
Does anyone have any recommendations on a good registry mechanic?

Free if possible.

Rich, here's an awesome site this guy has put together.  I keep this one bookmarked;

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

My secretary got a virus a few months ago that removed all her file associations.  This site saved my ass.

KC
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Offline cavegal

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2010, 09:11:09 PM »
I installed spybot...


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Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #8 on: July 08, 2010, 07:45:50 AM »
I installed spybot...

Did you run it?  Did it find anything?

KC
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Offline cavegal

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #9 on: July 08, 2010, 12:24:58 PM »
Did you run it?  Did it find anything?

KC
I have 2 laptops, I use this one during the day. I just installed it and will run it in a minute. Will let you know for sure.... :popcorn:


“Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,”  Donald J.Trump. 6/13/16

Offline Thor

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2010, 01:01:17 PM »
Let's limit this thread to links and such, not  as a "help me" thread. Thanks. Those types of threads would be better served as a separate topic.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."- IBID

I AM your General Ne'er Do Well, Troublemaker & All Around Meanie!!

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."-Thomas Jefferson

Offline rich_t

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #11 on: July 08, 2010, 04:18:45 PM »
Rich, here's an awesome site this guy has put together.  I keep this one bookmarked;

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

My secretary got a virus a few months ago that removed all her file associations.  This site saved my ass.

KC

Lools like a pretty good site.  But I'm running Vista and that site seems to be XP specific.
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." --Norman Thomas, 1944

Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #12 on: July 08, 2010, 05:38:39 PM »
Lools like a pretty good site.  But I'm running Vista and that site seems to be XP specific.

You may want to try Ccleaner .... just pay attention to what it's wanting to delete or fix.

KC
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Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #13 on: July 22, 2010, 06:58:32 PM »
I have a question.

My Aunt's Motherboard blew, I took it to a guy I always go to with my computers and he was going over some things with me.

He replaced the Motherboard, and he uninstalled a few programs I had installed, I installed WIN Patrol and Iobit's Advanced System Care. I'm going to pick up the computer tomorrow and I'm going to install Avast, I have it installed and I love it, but what can I use to search for Spyware? Spybot is mentioned here and for some reason it never found anything on my computer, is there another program to use? or should I just reinstall Iobit? and any opinions about WIN Patrol? Scotty the dog has prevented things from being installed in my Start-up programs so I really like it, but what are your opinions on it? Oh and about Avast, it's always running so if I picked up a virus would it let me know right away? or would it warn me if I went to a site that might have a virus?

Also a question about Malwarebytes, I have it installed on my computers, but everytime I run it it never finds anything, I find it hard to believe that there's nothing on my computer. And what's your opinion on CCleaner?

Thanks!

You can always try another spyware program just as a backup.  Since they don't run in the background (usually) you can run them individually to see what they find.  Most of them look at things differently.

Ccleaner .... I love it personally.

KC
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Offline Ballygrl

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #14 on: July 22, 2010, 07:19:55 PM »
You can always try another spyware program just as a backup.  Since they don't run in the background (usually) you can run them individually to see what they find.  Most of them look at things differently.

Ccleaner .... I love it personally.

KC

OK, so I'll install CCleaner on her computer, and you think it's OK to put Iobit Advanced System care back on? and do you recommend running more than 1 spyware program?
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Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #15 on: July 22, 2010, 07:31:48 PM »
OK, so I'll install CCleaner on her computer, and you think it's OK to put Iobit Advanced System care back on? and do you recommend running more than 1 spyware program?

I've never heard of Iobit so can't comment on it.

It is absolutely fine to run more than one spyware program as long as you don't have any of them running in the background.  I think it is an excellent idea to run a couple of different spyware progs.  NEVER run more than one virus prog at the same time though.  They tend to run in the background and can cancel each other out.

KC
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Offline Ballygrl

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #16 on: July 22, 2010, 07:34:37 PM »
I've never heard of Iobit so can't comment on it.

It is absolutely fine to run more than one spyware program as long as you don't have any of them running in the background.  I think it is an excellent idea to run a couple of different spyware progs.  NEVER run more than one virus prog at the same time though.  They tend to run in the background and can cancel each other out.

KC

Thanks for the info, as you can see I'm not very techy LOL. It's OK that I run Avast though when I'm on the net, right? and I don't think my spyware is running while I'm surfing the net, but how do I know it isn't? is there a way to insure it doesn't?
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"The nation that couldn’t be conquered by foreign enemies has been conquered by its elected officials" odawg Free Republic in reference to the GOP Elites who are no difference than the Democrats

Offline Reaganomica

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #17 on: November 01, 2010, 10:51:43 PM »
I'm still having good luck with AVG free and Superantispyware. 

Offline Thor

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #18 on: November 01, 2010, 11:28:42 PM »
I'm still having good luck with AVG free and Superantispyware. 

You may, for a while, until that really NASTY bug sneaks through. AVG is OK, but it's let me down in the past.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."- IBID

I AM your General Ne'er Do Well, Troublemaker & All Around Meanie!!

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."-Thomas Jefferson

Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #19 on: November 02, 2010, 02:22:53 PM »
I'm still having good luck with AVG free and Superantispyware. 

AVG let 3 really nasty viruses through on my network over the last year.  2 on my secretaries machine and one on mine.  It's been replaced.

Right now I'm running the Microsoft Security Essentials .... so far, so good.  We'll see how it goes.

KC

PS if you think about getting MSE make SURE you download it from microsoft.com.  There is a ransomware by the same name.
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Offline BlueStateSaint

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #20 on: November 25, 2010, 06:44:20 PM »
Gang, I've got something that I accidentally downloaded, called "System Tool 2.12."  It says that I've got 38 viruses, and that it'll cost at leat $60/year (1 year) to remove them.  Is this below-board?  I tried all of the fixes in this thread, and this damned program won't let me execute a single one.  Yet, my wife's stuff is unaffected.  What gives?
« Last Edit: November 25, 2010, 06:46:46 PM by BlueStateSaint »
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Offline Chris_

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Offline Texacon

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #22 on: November 25, 2010, 06:51:40 PM »
Gang, I've got something that I accidentally downloaded, called "System Tool 2.12."  It says that I've got 38 viruses, and that it'll cost at leat $60/year (1 year) to remove them.  Is this below-board?  I tried all of the fixes in this thread, and this damned program won't let me execute a single one.  Yet, my wife's stuff is unaffected.  What gives?

Do NOT pay that.  Ever.  That is a scam plain and simple.  Here's a web site that can help you with that but you will need to be very patient.  Make sure you read what you need to do before you post.  Some of those rogueware/ransomware/scareware programs can be very difficult to remove.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com

They have some awesome tools and the help is all volunteer.  They are very, very good at what they do.  Good luck and let us know how it goes!

KC
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Offline Chris_

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #23 on: December 13, 2010, 01:53:58 PM »
Here is another one similar to the Security Tool thing I dealt with earlier... this one is called HHD Recovery or something similar (and it came from the same user).  This one is a little more difficult to get rid of since it mimicks Windows system errors as well (Critical).

http://remove-malware.net/how-to-remove-smart-hdd-fake-security-program/

When you start searching the registry, write down all the different values under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “[random]“, because they'll be all over the place.  Also, clear out the \user\AppData\Local\Temp folder of any matching file names. 

Damn, I'm getting tired of these nasty suckers.
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Offline namvet

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Re: Virus & Malware Removal
« Reply #24 on: February 09, 2011, 02:45:07 PM »
mine is all bundled into one program. I also have the CCleaner as well. and I found this. a freebie. ive cleaned off a ton of trash with this. its not an AV or spyware program. its hunts down old programs that are at end of life and more. I run it twice a week. Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) check it out

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/




 

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