The PlayGround DFX2 Forum

I was recently attacked by a very nasty virus/worm that I couldn't get rid of. It had bypassed my McAfee security, disabled the updates from Microsoft and proceeded to start sending out spam. Then I started getting the blue screen of death. Every time I would disinfect my laptop it would reinfect itself. Finally, after some technical assistance, I downloaded a free anti-malware program called combofix. It is very powerful and it found an infected device driver that was causing my issues. The other software weren't looking at the drivers, so beware!

Scary stuff, Wind. What was the name of the malware that attacked you?

HotStick-PG-

One was Artemis and the other was just a bunch oh letters and numbers.

How or where did you get the virus/worm Wind?

I've been at work all weekend so I missed this post but nothing from my company's IT department as of Sunday 5pm PST. They're very good at posting things like this since many of us share the same computer daily.

I wonder if MS Malware or Windows Defender would detect it on my home computers?

I run Defender, like I said, it interfered with Windows updates, including Defender. I tried to download MS malware, and kept getting a "Download Failed" message. I don't know exactly where I got it from, except my daughter clicked on a pop-up that said the computer was infected and to run a free scan. Then my browser home page started getting hijacked.

This is one of the most insideous of attacks these days. Anti-virus/anti-malware posing as the users saviour, when in fact they are infecting the PC so the only thing you can do (supposedly) is download their software for a fee to remove the crap that they have installed.

I know that everyone is cost concious, but as far as I am concerned the money spent for a full protection suite of software is the best money spent on a PC. Many of the for $ software suites use more than just lists to protect the PC, (hueristics and behaiour pattern monitoring). These prevent drive-bys and zero day attacks. Of course, nothing can stop the user fom clicking on what seems to be a helpful ad, only to be infected. The only cure for this is training.

HotStick-PG-

I use AVG Suite and Spy bot Dont have any problems

WoW! I ran spybot and got rid of some malware and tracking cookies.

Then I ran that combofix and it found hundreds more that spybot didn't find.

Thanks for the info!

Another "free" download softwware that we use in conjunction with commercial products is "Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware".

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Remember to ALWAYS download the latest version from the website when you run this free product, as they make many version changes per year, and a threat that is on your machine may not be discovered by an older version of the software. If you wish to pay for this product, they will automatically keep you updated with the latest version.

This software will find almost all known malware... follow the directions and run from safe mode if necessary.

HotStick-PG-

When I clicked to "REMOVE" the problems it said I had to pay $29.95 for 12 months of protection. That's not "FREE".