Viruses, Trojans and Worms oh my!
Early Friday morning I got onto to my computer and realized that my computer had been infected. I don't know how long it had been infected or what infected it, but it had one of the nastiest infections: Win32.BHO.df
BHO's are apparently designed to monitor your logins and send them off to another computer. It is so deeply rooted that it takes some heavy virus removing to get rid of it. Or my solution:
Stuff your own registry up so you can't log in anymore, then reinstall the system.
Magically the bloody thing is gone.
I'm not all that upset over it. In fact it probably about time to do it. My computer is running better now; I can feel it.
But I spent the better part of the weekend trying to get rid of it, running Spybot Search & Destroy, stabbing it with a knife, running Spybot again. Don't get me wrong, Spybot is brilliant at removing the crap that can get onto your computer. Combine it with Startup Mechanic and you have a pretty deadly force. (CCleaner is also great for deleting things permanently.) But my lovely Win32.BHO.df was beyond all that.
The internet was full of people propose doing all sorts of checking and removing, using technical jargon above my head. There was no easy point-and-click method of removing this thing.
I should've reinstalled my system sooner.
(Note: Repair failed. I think the Win32.BHO.df was blocking Windows from writing over it. Had to reinstall it over the current install. That way Windows deleted everything in the System first.)
(Note: We're talking about my desktop, which I've had since 2006 and has been upgraded along the way. The purdy laptop is safe, thankfully. So is Kithal's machine, but I don't really care about his machine. :P)
BHO's are apparently designed to monitor your logins and send them off to another computer. It is so deeply rooted that it takes some heavy virus removing to get rid of it. Or my solution:
Stuff your own registry up so you can't log in anymore, then reinstall the system.
Magically the bloody thing is gone.
I'm not all that upset over it. In fact it probably about time to do it. My computer is running better now; I can feel it.
But I spent the better part of the weekend trying to get rid of it, running Spybot Search & Destroy, stabbing it with a knife, running Spybot again. Don't get me wrong, Spybot is brilliant at removing the crap that can get onto your computer. Combine it with Startup Mechanic and you have a pretty deadly force. (CCleaner is also great for deleting things permanently.) But my lovely Win32.BHO.df was beyond all that.
The internet was full of people propose doing all sorts of checking and removing, using technical jargon above my head. There was no easy point-and-click method of removing this thing.
I should've reinstalled my system sooner.
(Note: Repair failed. I think the Win32.BHO.df was blocking Windows from writing over it. Had to reinstall it over the current install. That way Windows deleted everything in the System first.)
(Note: We're talking about my desktop, which I've had since 2006 and has been upgraded along the way. The purdy laptop is safe, thankfully. So is Kithal's machine, but I don't really care about his machine. :P)