I have a few viruses and malware that have been overtaking my desktop this past week. I normally use Symantec Antivirus, but it cannot detect the viruses that are left. After installing numerous programs - Malwarebytes, avast, Adaware, Sophos Anti-Rootkit, etc. - only Spyware Doctor and free AVG are able to open and run. I was able to delete all of what Spyware Doctor detected except for this GLOBALROOT virus. Every attempt to remove it leads to a blue screen and restart, even in Safe Mode. The other demons that may have been removed but I'm not totally sure include 'wow64main', Cryptor, win32.reno, win32.dipnet.d, win32.agent.pp, and some more win32 varients.
I am running Vista Home Premium SP2. With the amount of time I've spent thus far, I'm very tempted to just back my files up and reformat the whole drive and follow with a Windows 7 install!
I was afraid of that. But I guess the time spent reformatting and installing Windows 7 would be much more beneficial and would ease my mind of always wondering if something is still lurking.
All of my personal files ie. docs, music, vids, games - are all on a seperate partition. Would this make them less likely to be infected?
What virus/malware programs would you suggest to have running once I reinstall? Something that would also catch these rootkits?
Seems like Norton and Windows Defender wasn't enough in my case.
A separate partition will help but is no guarantee of not being infected. I would try Norton Recovery Disk scanning and possibly a-squared's USB Emergency stick scanner also (available here).
As to the effectiveness of scanners against modern RootKits, this is a tough one as the modern ones are actually written to get past some AV but are still blocked by others. However, no AV blocks all of the RootKits out there now. One possibility is to use something like NIS and Malwarebytes / SUPERAntiSpyware scans (free versions of these programs do not interfere with Norton's Real Time scanner at all) to double up on the detection capabilities.
Once you do reinstall and go back to NAV, I would also suggest getting a good firewall since NAV doesn't have a firewall. You mentioned a lot of programs you tried to remove this rootkit and other nasties, but no mention of what firewall you use. Remember, it has to be one that will cooperate with Norton products also. I don't think that windows firewalls are good enough in today's world, but I don't know really how good Win 7 firewall may be now either.
Thanks for all the advice. The only firewall I had going was from Windows Security. Apparently I'll have to do better than that. I should have my external hard drive on wednesday and then I'm going to begin transferring my files over and reformatting the hard drive.
I was using Symantec Antivirus CE (corporate edition) as my main checker. I'm guessing this isn't sufficient either?
I started using it because it was less of a hog than the big Norton package.
Can anyone suggest a good combo of anti virus/spyware/malware programs to have running that work well together? And should I just ditch the default Windows security?
I have a few viruses and malware that have been overtaking my desktop this past week. I normally use Symantec Antivirus, but it cannot detect the viruses that are left. After installing numerous programs - Malwarebytes, avast, Adaware, Sophos Anti-Rootkit, etc. - only Spyware Doctor and free AVG are able to open and run. I was able to delete all of what Spyware Doctor detected except for this GLOBALROOT virus. Every attempt to remove it leads to a blue screen and restart, even in Safe Mode. The other demons that may have been removed but I'm not totally sure include 'wow64main', Cryptor, win32.reno, win32.dipnet.d, win32.agent.pp, and some more win32 varients.
I am running Vista Home Premium SP2. With the amount of time I've spent thus far, I'm very tempted to just back my files up and reformat the whole drive and follow with a Windows 7 install!