Steps to Rid PCs of Viruses and RootKits

We recently discovered a new breed of malware that is very effective in hiding itself from common methods and applications (antivirus / antispyware, etc) used on a day-to-day basis for detecting such pests.

From a personal experience, we recently serviced a number of PCs that were infected with mass-mailing viruses only to discover later on that the issue at hand (mass-mailing) was still present, despite our numerous antivirus scans, etc.that always showed the PCs to be clean and free of all malware.

We later came to learn that the reason for the "non detection" of the malware was due to a new breed of malware called Root Kits. You can find out more on Root Kits by clicking here http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/20051123_what_is_a_rootkit.html

In order to combat the above, we have put together a set of tools or best practices that we use in-house to clean-up PCs.  These should be used in the order listed below to detect and rid PCs of these pests:

1. Uninstall existing antivirus program [DO NOT REBOOT YOUR PC]

2. Download and install the Avira Antivir Antivirus from http://www.free-av.com (it is Free).  Once installed an updated, click on the Schedule Tab and toggle the check box to the right of the Daily scan option to turn it on.  Thereafter, click on the Scan tab, highlight local drives, right click and select scan now to start a full system scan

3. Download and install the CCleaner application from http://www.ccleaner.com or locally from here.  Once installed, run it to remove temporary files and fix registry-related issues.

4. Download and Run Combofix on the PC to remove and correct the damage done by root kits. Click to download ComboFix

5. Once #5 is done, Download and run an application called "SuperAntiSpyware" and carry out a complete system scan.  Delete all items found during the system scan http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html

The steps above should be carried out on each and every PC you own.

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