WARNING!!!

[Gunk]

In the mean time, DO NOT buy anything online, check your bank account or log in to any email accounts where personal information is stored. Odds are there is a key logging or screen capturing virus embedded with the virus sending information back to the mother ship.

In addition to running a scan, get yourself a firewall that filters both inbound and outbound traffic. Odds are the Trojan has also compromised your computer so it's now part of a botnet. An outbound firewall will stop, or should stop the hacker from using your machine to spit out spam. Typically computers experience a sudden decline in performance once hit by a virus/trojan because the hacker is using their computer as a spam machine.

If you want to be absolutely sure your machine is no longer infected, save all your important files to a USB drive or external hard drive, wipe your computer clean and reinstall the OS. It will take you a few hours and you'll have to reinstall all your applications, but your machine will be clean. It's also something you can do yourself. If you take it to a professional place they'll likely just do the same thing. They'll migrate all your files and applications to a server, wipe your computer clean, migrate everything back and charge you an arm and a leg.

I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to this, but the going rate for someone's ID on the black market is about $15. Only way a hacker could sell them that cheap is if they were getting a lot of them.

Another option for scanning your machine is to go to one of the big anti virus vendors (Symantec, McAfee, ZoneAlarm) and install a 15 day trial period of their product. You can then scan all you want, get your machine clean and not purchase the product after the trial. IMO, though, $50 on a security suite is worth it.

[CougarPeasant]

All good suggestions. Another is to run your antispyware and antivirus in SAFE MODE, but only after you've installed the most recent updates. While in safe mode, no viruses are supposed to load nor can they hide themselves. Ive done this enough times when I think I've gotten something and sure enough, safe mode is a great way to go without having to reinstall.

It's also helpful to reinstall Windows about 1-2 times each year just to keep it stable.

Good luck

[kiwibacon]

All good suggestions. Another is to run your antispyware and antivirus in SAFE MODE, but only after you've installed the most recent updates. While in safe mode, no viruses are supposed to load nor can they hide themselves. Ive done this enough times when I think I've gotten something and sure enough, safe mode is a great way to go without having to reinstall.

It's also helpful to reinstall Windows about 1-2 times each year just to keep it stable.

Good luck

Some of the nasty ones will actually not allow you to boot in safe mode.

[Mars]

Anyone familiar with the virus "Internet security 2010?" ...Well, I just visited mwcboard.com (the direct link, as opposed to jumping straight to the forums, as I usually do) on my wife's computer, and I instantaneous had this piece of crap virus installed onto my computer (is also appears on your desktop, which is mightily annoying).

Just wondering how you know you got it from MWCboard.com ?

[kiwibacon]

I also recommend that everyone post only here and not at MWCboards!

Agreed...Italics, stop posting at MWCboard...your computer will thank you...

[Mars]

So the Geek Squad wants $200 to fix my computer. Sounds like highway robbery to me. Should I just wipe my drive and re-install Windows? And what information should I save to an external hard drive if this is the case?

[snoscythe]

So the Geek Squad wants $200 to fix my computer. Sounds like highway robbery to me. Should I just wipe my drive and re-install Windows? And what information should I save to an external hard drive if this is the case?

Are you in Utah County? If so, try calling Steve at Integrated Technologies:

http://www.itiservice.com/

We finally outsourced all of our IT stuff to Steve a couple years ago. Sharp guy, reasonable rates, and turns work around pretty fast. Plus, I've always been partial to local guys who have their wife as the receptionist.

[CougarPeasant]

All good suggestions. Another is to run your antispyware and antivirus in SAFE MODE, but only after you've installed the most recent updates. While in safe mode, no viruses are supposed to load nor can they hide themselves. Ive done this enough times when I think I've gotten something and sure enough, safe mode is a great way to go without having to reinstall.

It's also helpful to reinstall Windows about 1-2 times each year just to keep it stable.

Good luck

Some of the nasty ones will actually not allow you to boot in safe mode.

It helps to have a boot disc then. ALso, one can run their anti-virus as a boot disc too. Norton allows that.

[CAFB_04-12]

I've heard that some viruses can survive a hard drive reformat by stuffing themselves in a corner while the thing thinks it's erasing itself, then relaunches after the re-boot. Is that true? That's some H1N1 right there.

[Qman]

I've heard that some viruses can survive a hard drive reformat by stuffing themselves in a corner while the thing thinks it's erasing itself, then relaunches after the re-boot. Is that true? That's some H1N1 right there.

Possible in theory but incredibly difficult in execution. To fix this just reformat your hard drive before reinstalling.

Another possible solution would be use a linux boot cd to move your files; scan them and then reinstall the operation system of your choice.

For MAC users viruses are coming your way with a larger share of users.