August 24, 2008
The dragon is slain!
Remember this?
It’s been four long days hunched over my keyboard and I think I’ve developed a permanent dowager’s hump. Four days of stressing and staying up each night “just a little longer,” then finally falling asleep at my desk in the wee hours. Four days of downloading and running various AV software programs. Four days of a computer running so slowly that I was unable to do all of the things I usually do online. Today I announce … SUCCESS! The trojan is dead, and all of his nasty little companions with him!
My problems started Wednesday night when my CA Anti-Virus alerted me to an intruder. Only a Trojan virus, one of the more innocuous forms of malware, but this particual Trojan packs a surprise. The Pupur family of Trojan viruses don’t travel alone. When they come to visit they bring siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. Several viruses install at once. The reason they’re so pernicious is this: each carries instructions to install the other. Your anti-virus program deletes the first intruder, but before it can get to the companions, they’ve re-installed the one that was already deleted. I was getting pop-up virus alerts every five to thirty seconds as a virus was deleted and then immediately reinstalled. I turned off my alerts in frustration, then went searching for a solution. Here’s the problem with CA: they couldn’t fix it. They were quick to tell me I had a problem, but were not able to get a step ahead of the reinstalls and stop them. After twenty-four or so frustrating hours of research I had enough of a handle on the thing to realize that CA was no longer my friend. What good is an anti-virus program if the only thing it can do is tell you that you’re infected?
I used to have Norton on my computer. It’s the gold standard of anti-virus programs, right? I ditched it in favor of CA a while back because Norton protected me so well that I couldn’t see things I wanted and needed to see - things on my blog like widgets in my sidebars and image maps in my posts. When CA failed me I didn’t want to go back to those problems, so I checked out McAfee. It looked good and came with recommendations from friends, always a plus with me. And if installing and running the program doesn’t delete viruses already present, McAfee offers a Virus Removal Service for only $89.00 - that’s a lot cheaper and a lot more convenient than unhooking your computer, carrying it to a local geek, being totally without service for a few days or a week, then paying a hefty bill. I downloaded the trial scan and set it to work. Over six hours later, McAfee was still scanning and hadn’t yet gone through a quarter of my content. What’s up with that? Meanwhile, a Twitter friend suggested that I try Trend Micro Housecall instead. Feeling like I had nothing to lose, I shut down the ongoing McAfee scan and downloaded the trial version of Trend Micro. It took a little over three hours to scan my computer, then removed all of the malware it found, including my Trojan guests and various adware/spyware intruders that CA had not detected and removed.
Happiness is a search that comes up empty! I searched for the Pupar virus and all the companions that accompanied it when it came for a visit. None of them are now present on my computer. Trend Micro sent them packing without the benefit of lovely parting gifts or even travel insurance. I can only hope that they don’t survive the trip to their next unwilling host! I probably don’t have to tell you I’ll be buying the full version of Trend Micro before my thirty day free trial expires. Your experiences may be different, but Trend Micro is what worked for me. I may be a non-geek, but I know a good thing when I find it!
Technorati Tags: anti-virus programs, computer virus, getting rid of trojan virus, trojan virus, virus
Posted by skeet @ 2:56 pm • Internet; the WWW, Computers & Technology
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August 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm, skeet’s stuff » Self Portrait Sunday for August 24, 2008 Says:
[…] left the house in four days except for a milk and bread run. I’ve been wearing myself out slaying dragons and didn’t even have the energy to go to a Table of Contents luncheon yesterday. I also […]
August 25th, 2008 at 1:03 am, Anele Says:
I tried posting to your original computer post 6x and it kept telling me it had already posted but I saw it never showed up. GRRR!
My suggestion from my computer geek hubby was making sure you download Spybot Search and Destroy (free) installed and set it up to run regular scans. It’s been a good background help in addition to our normal anti-virus (AVG) to keep the computers humming.
http://www.spybot.info/en/spybotsd/index.html
August 25th, 2008 at 1:03 am, Anele Says:
I tried posting to your original computer post 6x and it kept telling me it had already posted but I saw it never showed up. GRRR!
My suggestion from my computer geek hubby was making sure you download Spybot Search and Destroy (free) installed and set it up to run regular scans. It’s been a good background help in addition to our normal anti-virus (AVG) to keep the computers humming.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:51 am, Lisa C. Says:
Totally know trojans are not funny, but… I think you just described my family.. lol.. We never travel alone, and were there’s one there’s a million, we infest, we bring aunts uncles cousins, etc… we always called ourselves hispanic, but I like your discription better…. anyways getting sidetracked… just wanted to step and agree with anele… I love Spybot.. has been a life saver several times for me.. (love your blog)
August 25th, 2008 at 3:24 pm, blueyes Says:
Been there done that but luckily when it happened to the one drive it had just been set up and it was it fubared to begin with so I had to swipe it clean again but that learned me in what I was doing to get it lol Check all downloaded files. Bastids. I let Norton do a weekly scan and I should use Spybot more often but I don’t.