PCFormat Forum Archive

A friend came over with 2 external harddrives. I plugged the first one in and Avast immediately gave a warning that there is a virus and the virus has been moved to the chest. I asked my friend whats with the virus, he said I don't have to worry it only affects Vista and Windows 7. To his suprise I was running Vista

Anyway, with Avast catching the virus I thought all is good. That was not the case. Ever since then Windows has slowed down a lot. It also often just freezes. I've noticed it mostly happens when I'm online. I've updated avast and run a scan and everything seems to be clear. I'm certain it is related to that virus. What do?

Step one, punch friend in face.
step two, boot up in safe mode in scan
Install and scan with SpyBot S and D

check booting items in 'msconfig' and programs running in memory.

First Ctrl+Alt+Del and see if anything unusual is running in Task Manager. Then send your friend a package containing a fine, white powdery substance. It may be acceptable to reverse the order of these to-dos.

One reason external hdds and flash drives only goes into my Linux box that act as file server. No nasty surprises.

Huns, please find a better subject heading?

Task Mangaer shows nothing really suspicious thats chowing the resources. And whenever it starts to slow down it's almost impossible to access the task manager.
I downloaded the latest Spybot and updated it. It found 3 bad cookies from internet explorer which I don't use.

The avast chest states the virus name is AutoRun-S[wrm] I googled it and cant seem to find anyone who experience the same symptoms as what I am. It can't be coincidence? right?

Actually I think the heading perfectly fits the subject.

Given the calibre of "friends" Siemens has he is clearly in the herp contingent of the derp brigade.

jee wrote:Huns, please find a better subject heading?

Fixed

jamin_za wrote:Actually I think the heading perfectly fits the subject.

Given the calibre of "friends" Siemens has he is clearly in the herp contingent of the derp brigade.

Forever alone

Siemens wrote:

jee wrote:Huns, please find a better subject heading?

Fixed

Nope fixed it for you properly

RuadRauFlessa wrote: Nope fixed it for you properly

Who is this Nope?

Get MSE

Open up the command line and type in "format c:". Any problems that you are experiencing with this virus will magically cease after a few minutes.

(Seriously folks - I'm not joking.)

Deleting System32 is also an option. It will make your pc faster and make it virus proof.

Siemens wrote:Task Mangaer shows nothing really suspicious thats chowing the resources. And whenever it starts to slow down it's almost impossible to access the task manager.

You did select to see tasks for all users? And checked systematically to see that you fare happy with all running processes? It's kinda difficult to solve a problem if you can't find out what's causing it. Otherwise just follow iRon's advice.

Download this 4MB file. Put it on your desktop. Disable your antivirus and run it. You'll be as good as new in 30 minutes.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/downloa ... s/combofix

Then for future protection, get a program like the following to catch these "autorun" viruses from external USB devices.

http://www.autorunremover.com/effective-antivirus.html

And one other thing. Another freeware program you can't be without is "ccleaner" it cleans up your system nicely and you'll see a decent improvement in speed.

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

P.S. disable system restore before you do any of this. Your virus is hiding there. This will delete all files. Then don't forget to re-enable it.

Sorry quote and edit buttons swapped places...

And never ever open anything with the autorun dialogue!

Thanks Synthesis and everyone else

Sure no problem.
Give this thread a read:

http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=36364

There's some suggestions there as well for you.

Yeah the thing is that thread helps to keep the nasty off the flash drive. In my case the flash drive infected me. However I somehow figured out that the freezing was not caused by a Virus but by uTorrent(which err I use for completely legal stuff of course).