I got some trojan on my comp about two days ago, and only realised yesterday, when I tried XFire, found neither it nor the site was connecting, and I couldn't access a help site about common viruses/spyware. Then began a campaign of 3 anti-spyware/malware scans, 4 antivirus scans, one Norton Antivirus full system check, and about four hours of research.
Finally I seem to have removed all working traces of the virus, mostly by careful manual deletion (fortunately most files and .ddls were stored in the one folder) and XFire has resumed working, the sites have become unblocked, and none of the spyware scans have turned up anything, except for a few standard tracking cookies every site seems to have.
However, there is one thing I haven't deleted - the registry keys. I know I can use REGEDIT to do that, but that would void my warranty - not something I want on a 5 month old computer. If I've deleted all traces save for the registry values (which actually may have been deleted by registry mechanic, as they no longer link to anything), will the virus still be crippled/destroyed? This is the first time I've had to root out something like this, usually it's a simple worm.
And finally, let that be a lesson. ALWAYS research internet programs before using them, and if possible get a friend to use it on his own computer for an extended period before trying it as well. Just my luck he directed me to a program that came bundled with a trojan Browser Helper Object.
P.S. If you want a download manager, use GetRight. NEVER try FlashGet. Also, can anyone tell me if Fresh Download is any good?
/rant Panda
Finally I seem to have removed all working traces of the virus, mostly by careful manual deletion (fortunately most files and .ddls were stored in the one folder) and XFire has resumed working, the sites have become unblocked, and none of the spyware scans have turned up anything, except for a few standard tracking cookies every site seems to have.
However, there is one thing I haven't deleted - the registry keys. I know I can use REGEDIT to do that, but that would void my warranty - not something I want on a 5 month old computer. If I've deleted all traces save for the registry values (which actually may have been deleted by registry mechanic, as they no longer link to anything), will the virus still be crippled/destroyed? This is the first time I've had to root out something like this, usually it's a simple worm.
And finally, let that be a lesson. ALWAYS research internet programs before using them, and if possible get a friend to use it on his own computer for an extended period before trying it as well. Just my luck he directed me to a program that came bundled with a trojan Browser Helper Object.
P.S. If you want a download manager, use GetRight. NEVER try FlashGet. Also, can anyone tell me if Fresh Download is any good?
/rant Panda
Last edited by some_random_panda (2007-05-26 22:57:00)
