Computer virus, the blue cube

[JohnMitchell 14]

Acck! I think we just toasted one of our laptops with a nasty little virus. Valinda said she clicked on a blue cube icon on the desktop and all hell broke loose. Anyone else run into this? Any suggestions? One of our geek friends stated that me may just have a new paper weight.

[niolosoiale 0]

If it was me, I'd just wipe the operating system and start over.

[matt1215 0]

Quote

If it was me, I'd just wipe the operating system and start over.

Yup, time for fresh OS

[PhreeZone 15]

Try this if its a hot virus: http://download.nai.com/products/mcafee-avert/stng260.exe

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[RhondaLea 3]

Edited to add: I think this is all good advice, so I'm going to leave it here, but I don't think it's what you need, John. Please see my follow-up post.



Is your data backed up?

Reformat and reinstall.

But I don't think this is a virus, exactly. It sounds like you changed a registry entry

You might just want to try system restore to the restore point immediately preceding the blue cube (which appears to be a reg file). If that fixes the immediate problem, try the following (program and instructions from David Lipman):

Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

To use this utility, perform the following...
Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
Choose; Unzip
Choose; Close

Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }

NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE to go through your
FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files.

C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode.
This way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor's web site.
The choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Kaspersky, Exit this menu and Reboot the PC.

You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.

When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
file. http://www.ik-cs.com/multi-av.htm

Additional Instructions:
http://pcdid.com/Multi_AV.htm

I assume you have a firewall and antivirus (if you don't, you need to), so you might also want to download and run at least three of the following:

Spybot Search and Destroy
Adaware
SuperAntiSpyare
A-squared
Ewido

After you get all that done, there are other things you can do to lock it down so this doesn't happen again.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[RhondaLea 3]

Y'know what? Before you do anything else, go here, and follow the directions:

http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction

Apparently you have a Smitfraud/Spy Sherriff problem.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[squirrel 0]

or you could buy a mac...

________________________________
Where is Darwin when you need him?

[RhondaLea 3]

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or you could buy a mac...

I'm a Mac person at heart...but Mac is next.

Not to mention that the first "in the wild" computer viruses were found on Apple computers. And as Apple gains in market share, we are heading that way again.

Things have changed a lot with malware in these last years. People who don't do everything to protect their computers from invasion are not being responsible.

Where do you think all that spam you're getting comes from? The zombied computers of people who didn't take precautions to protect their operating systems and data.

rl

P.S. Don't mind me, I needed to rant just a little. The whole thing is probably full of typos anyway, because I can't see the friggin' monitor very well.

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[squirrel 0]

no worries.

actually, we have and external drive, not connected all the time, used only during backups. my mac did fail once, but that was after i dropped it...

________________________________
Where is Darwin when you need him?