Computers have their own shelf life, but virus
and malware issues cut that time
exponentially. Even if you follow preventive
measures to the letter, computer viruses are so
named because they have the knack of
evolving faster than people can find a way to
counteract them. They are a seemingly never-
dying breed, but then it’s an occupational
hazard that comes with owning technology.
First: Take measures to prevent infection
Preventing infection is easiest with a brand
new machine. It’s even easier if you decide to
keep your computer completely isolated. Don’t
connect it to the internet. Don’t plug it to an
external hard drive or pen drive. Don’t install
anything on it from any external source. If
that is the case, stop reading this article right
here. You’re doing everything right with
respect to owning a completely uninfectable
computer.
If, however, your PC is more than
just an expensive paperweight, read on.
The first thing you do when you get a new
computer is get a good antivirus. Now you can
choose to go for a paid solution but free ones
such as Avast are good as well.
Install the antivirus on the PC, and then
update it online. Your first line of defence is
set, more or less. This should take care of
most of the problems you may have faced
early in the game.
Avoid downloading anything that you know
nothing about. There’s a lot of freeware out
there that is riddled with viruses piggybacking
on them. When installing a new program, make
sure you don’t install any add-on software
unintentionally. Usually these add-on extra
software are listed as options in the install
process, with boxes prematurely checked and
ready.
Go through individual steps of the install
procedures, instead of just clicking ‘yes’ and
‘next’ throughout to hasten the process.
Try verifying the safety of a website before you
visit it. Yes, the antivirus is supposed to block
malicious online content, and it certainly does,
but you need to remember that everything,
including your awesome, antivirus isn’t
infallible.
The most important advice of all: watch what
you download. A lot of the Trojans and other
malware that make their way to your PC are a
result of zero vigilance. Keep your eyes open
when downloading off ANYWHERE from the
internet. You never know what’s infected.
Then establish cause and effect
How do you know if you’ve been infected?
First off, verify that it is indeed an infection
that is plaguing your PC. There have been
several scenarios where people say ‘My
computer is infected, but on further
examination, the ‘infection’ turns out to be
faulty hardware or badly installed firmware.
Cross out the less dramatic options before you
jump to the conclusion that your PC is,
indeed, infected.
Read and decipher the signs
There are some distinct signs that would
indicate malware or viruses. A slow computer
would be one sign. This is because your system
processes are being used by other malicious
software. On occasion, your computer would
restart for no rhyme or reason. Another sign
would be the fact that certain windows
features that help you manually remove the
malware would cease to work like your
Registry Editor (regedit), Task Manager
(taskmgr.exe), Command Prompt (cmd.exe),
System configuration utility (msconfig), Group
Policy Editor (gpedit.msc). If this happens,
move on to disinfection. Other telltale signs
include your web browser starts acting up by
giving you search results which have nothing at
all to do with what you were actually searching
for. Installed programs start crashing
randomly or start behaving in an odd manner.
Sometimes, Microsoft Update starts giving you
error messages, and the official websites would
be inaccessible.
The clincher of a sign that your PC is infected
is your antivirus starts acting up and nothing
you do it would make it work. Websites which
offer antiviruses won’t let you download any
programs either.
Disclaimer: Please note that BSOD is very
rarely a sign of virus attacks. It’s mostly a
result of your hardware being in a state of
disrepair.
First disinfect via safe mode
The most common method usually involves
rebooting your PC in safe mode. This is mainly
because this helps during troubleshooting
various software and your operating system as
a whole. Keep in mind that in some cases the
user is denied the option to boot in Safe Mode
or Safe mode with Networking. This would
mean your infection has spread too far, and
you need to try one of the other (possibly
radical) measure mentioned in the tips that
follow.
Booting the computer in ‘safe mode’ or ‘safe
mode with networking’ ensures that the PC
loads only the basic and absolutely necessary
system drivers and services. These steps are a
lot more effective because there is a much
better chance that the virus will not be loaded
at start-up. The ‘safe mode with networking’
option lets you download the required security
software to run a full scan for viruses and
clean the system.
Keep in mind that when disinfecting with this
method, it is imperative that your account has
Administrator rights.
Getting into Safe Mode : To enter Safe Mode,
boot your computer and press F8 before
Windows starts loading to enter the Windows
boot menu. Use this menu to access Safe
Mode. When you reach that menu, select Safe
Mode with Networking from the list of boot
options. Booting with Networking is
recommended — it’s better if you have
internet access to solve your virus problem.
Once your PC has booted in Safe Mode, open
Internet Explorer. Yes, we know we’re all fans
of Chrome and/or Firefox, and most of us may
have even removed IE from our system, but
it’s an unfortunate fact that using any other
browser while running Windows in safe mode
often causes more problems than it tries to
solve. So grow up, get online and download a
reliable antivirus software to try and clean
your PC. We would suggest Avast! or AVG if
you don’t intend to spend any money in this
process. Either buy the install disc and install
it in safe mode, or buy online from a clean PC,
then download the setup and install it on the
infected one. Whichever scanner you use
though remember not to rush the scan. Go for
the most thorough scan. The scan will (it
should) take a few hours. So take off for the
day. Take a road trip with your closest friends
and remember to complain about how bad
your PC’s infection was, and remember who to
thank for helping you fix it.
Clean-up using Ubuntu
If the safe mode method didn’t work, and your
problem is much bigger, i.e. your computer
isn’t booting and you don’t have access to the
OS. Well – be afraid. Be very afraid.
No, not really. Relax. It’s probably a boot
sector virus.
What is a boot sector virus? We’re glad you
asked.
A boot sector virus is a virus that places its
own codes and commands into a hard drive’s
boot sector (also known as its Master Boot
Record). When this kind of virus infects a
system, the Master Boot Record usually gets
corrupted. This means that the computer’s
boot sequence has changed. Boot sector
viruses can be dangerous and very creative.
They are loaded onto a computer every time
one starts up, and in time, they can spread to
the rest of your disks. An infection by a boot
sector virus generally leads to Booting and
start up problems, instability in your
computer’s performance, data retrieval issues
and the inability to detect your hard drives on
your PC.
This problem, however tedious, is quite
curable. Of course, there is the option of
running a high-level format on the hard drive,
and yes, that would fix your problem, but it
would also wipe out any data that is on the
drive. If you need to keep the data, the answer
is quite simple: Ubuntu.
A Windows boot sector hard drive has no
impact on the Linux kernel. Plugging in your
hard drive into a PC which runs on Ubuntu
and running one of its virus scans on it would
do the trick. In case you don’t have a Ubuntu
PC handy, read Digit’s last issue – the
Workshop section has a handy method of
installing Ubuntu on a pen drive.
Once you boot in Ubuntu, scan the hard drive
with any number of the Linux-compatible
antiviruses available. Avast! and AVG both have
Linux versions as well, and Bitdefender,
ClamAV and F-Prot are good options too.
The Ubuntu method works for most Windows
antivirus issues. If you want to be extremely
sure that your PC is clean, we suggest you go
through both techniques for a full cleanse.
Better safe than sorry
Though we’ve mentioned this several times
above, remember, it’s a lot better to get a full-
fledged and trustworthy antivirus software to
take care of your cleanup needs. Even after
you disinfect your system, keep a keen eye
open for virus issues, and keep running AV
scans on your system regularly to make sure
you’re virus-free. You can never be too safe,
and you will always be way too sorry.
inFAMOUS 5 