Virus and Malware Cleanup and Protection

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 11:54:13 AM

I have been asked many times recently to clean up computers that have been infected with various Trojans, Virii, Worms, etc. They all end about the same way, me making a house call.

Now, while I am usually willing to help people sometimes it just makes sense for people to help themselves some. Hopefully this will help you.

Recommended Software
I recommend AVG for day to day anti-virus software. They seem to stay up to date with signatures, it is free for home use and usually takes care of most of the threats I've come across.

For cleanup I also recommend MalwareByte's Anti-Malware. I have found it to clean up several trojans that nothing else seems to touch

Cleanup Instructions
One common theme I have found with removal of malware is that it needs to be performed in a special bootup mode called Safe Mode. Safe Mode allows Windows to load a minimal amount of resources and limit what starts up automatically, including most pieces of malware and their self-defense mechanisms. To boot into Safe Mode follow these steps:

1. Shutdown Your Computer
2. Press the power button on your computer
3. You should now see the BIOS loading, this usually has your computer manufacturers logo, hardware information or both.
4. Press F8 repeatedly until you are prompted for how you would like to start Windows - If you see the Windows loading screen then you will need to try again.
5. From the list select 'Safe Mode with Networking'
6. You should now see many lines of text scroll across your screen rapidly followed by Windows starting up and telling you that you are in Safe Mode

From Safe Mode, download and install both products. These should be installed immediately after you receive a new computer but since you are reading this article chances are that wasn't done. Not to worry, we will do this now.

After you have installed both products first run AVG, have it update the virus definitions from the internet and then run a full scan. Any items discovered should be selected and deleted.

Now, repeat the above step for MalwareByte's Anti-Malware. This product is key for removal of some items such as 'AntiVirus 2009' and 'VirusShield 2009'. To date this is the only program that I have found to affectively remove these programs.

Your computer should hopefully be clean now and running much faster. For some added benefit you should also defragment your C: drive.

If you have any other ideas, feel free to share them in the comments.