Thursday, January 29, 2009

Trojan Vundo and 360 Virus

I just spent 4 days, (IM'ing, emailing and phone conversations,) trying to help my Mother remove Trojan Vundo (virtumonde) and the 360 virus from her computer. I researched online and found lots of suggestions..... and I think we tried most all of them. I will tell you what they suggest does NOT work. Symantec's virus removal tool will not delete it. Nor will all of the other programs that they tell you have free downloads. We actually bought one, webroots SpySweeper. It will find them sure enough and tell you to delete them you need to register the program. Once you buy it, run it, it finds the virus, when you try to delete them it says that the files can not be deleted. You just bought a program and are still left with the Virus. Both my Mom and I have requested refunds, which they have yet to do, so buyer beware!

Now before you spend days of needless downloads and try this, that, and all of the things that we tried, there was only ONE thing that I tried (and it is FREE!) It will not cost you a dime to get rid of both Trojan Vundo and the 360 virus. It is called Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. It can be downloaded from here:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Download this program and save it to desktop. You do not have to be in safemode. I turned off System Restore when I ran it.

Run the program to install it. Update the program to make sure you have the latest spyware definitions. Run "quick" scan. Once it finds the files, select "delete." It will remove all of the files it finds there.

After I ran Malware Byte I also ran Spybot's Search and Destroy. http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-amp-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html
Again, update this program before doing the scan. Also "quarantine" your system after doing the updates and run their scan to pick up any other unwanted cookies and tracking software. When finished run a full virus scan. I suggest doing this for a few days just in case. It is better to be safe than sorry. Then set these programs to run on a regular schedule.

I use AVG's Free antivirus and I swear by it. http://free.avg.com/ Although it didn't catch all of the Vundo and 360 virus files it did find most of them and put them in the vault. Neither Norton or McAfee's Anti-virus programs found these viruses either. This trojan and it's variants seems to have slid under the nose of all of the anti-virus programs.

For years I have run my computers with AVG Free (Anti-virus,) System Mechanic (keeps your computer running smooth,) Spybot Search and Destroy (Spyware removal,) and will now add malwarebytes.

Happy Bug FREE computing!

Ciao,
LV

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