It is getting more and more difficult for virus and malware scanners to intercept malicious software in a timely manner. Even though people are diligently keeping their virus software up-to-date these insidious, destructive, time-wasting and costly viruses are proliferating at an exponential rate and software companies simply cannot keep up with the information needed to identify potential viruses.

Particularly infuriating are the viruses that are security software clones. These clones act like virus detection sofware. They display security alerts advising that your computer is infected and these clones then try to dupe you into downloading a program and/or spending money to get the virus removed. An example of one of these clones is System Tools 2011. Another is a Security Shield clone.

You will get these alerts right at the point of visiting one website or another and perhaps you’ve clicked on a particular link…thinking that you are downloading a music file. Sometimes all you have to do is visit a page and it immediately starts a download. Many websites are infected without the knowledge of the website owners.

To Prevent Damage to Your Computer Shut It Down Immediately!

If you get infected with one of these viruses shut down your computer immediately. Do not attempt to get rid of the virus. Do not attempt to run your virus scanner. It is already too late for that. Typically the viruses block your scanners and will block your attempts to use online scanners. Attempting these tasks will simply spread the virus further. Unless you know precisely what steps to take, the more you try to get rid of the virus the more damage it will do. Eventually it will become impossible to operate your computer.

Use a Bootable Thumb Drive

The very best approach is to reboot your computer using a clean USB thumb drive…one that is setup to boot Windows. When you reboot your computer you select to reboot from a USB device and not from your hard drive.

You should make and keep a bootable thumb drive in your arsenal of tools. Don’t wait until you have a problem. Make it now!

Booting Windows from a clean bootable disk puts you in a position to safely use Windows Explorer to hunt for and delete the virus. The thumb drive should contain the latest versions of various virus scanners including the Microsoft Malicious Tool remover. Sometimes you have to scan with half a dozen different tools to locate the virus. Sometimes, depending on how new the virus is, none of the scanners will find the virus and you just have to manually search for and delete the virus.

Boot Windows in Safe Mode with Command Prompt

If you can’t get your hands on a bootable thumb drive, the next best step is to use the F8 key to boot windows in safe mode with the command prompt. You can then use the command prompt to safely hunt for the virus. This is a very technical procedure. Yesterday I spent two hours talking through the procedure with a member of my family who is thousands of miles away from me. We found the offending exe file and we were able to delete it. We then rebooted to safe mode and installed various scanning tools including a trial version of Vipre. Vipre was the only virus tool that found the remaining components of the particular virus (a Security Shield clone) and eradicated it. Vipre also found additional lurking trojans and which various other virus scanning tools missed.

Another point to note: in researching the Security Shield clone, I found various instructions for removing it. The instructions usually include the names of files and certain entries in the registry to delete. But none of these tips proved accurate. The specified registry entries did not exist and the file name containing the virus was competely different from the one specified and there was more than one file to be deleted.

Cut Their Friggin Fingers Off!

Here’s what I think the penalty should be for any one caught authoring or distributing software viruses: cut their fingers off! That way they can’t use a keyboard to create any more malware.

Be Alert and Cautious

Here is a list of do’s and don’ts that might help keep you safe from malicious software.

• Keep your Windows software up-to-date.
• If you don’t have system recovery disks, make them now!
• Keep your virus software up-to-date.
• Use more than one virus scanner and scan often.
• Be vigilant about opening email from strangers. Don’t open email unless you know the sender. Even if you do be cautious because email accounts are being breached daily and used to spread spam and viruses.
• Don’t click on links in email even if you know the sender unless you are absolutely sure it is safe.
• Be suspicious of any email attachments or tiny urls
  (This is a sample of a tiny url : http://bit.ly/dM5gJU
• Be careful about downloading freeware. Malware authors often use freeware to spread their malice.
• Pay close attention to all alerts and error messages. Are these legitimate? Note down the detail; it might be useful later.
• And be very very cautious about clicking yes to any unsolicited downloads or attempts to install software.
• Last and not least do regular backups of your most important files especially any recent work files.

Need More Information?

If you need more information about the any thing in the do’s and don’t list or how to make a bootable USB drive or how to use the command prompt to find virus files post a comment below and I will reply. On the USB bootable drive, you will find plenty of instructions on the internet but most are written by geeks and are rather too cryptic for the inexperienced.

People are forever asking me: What is the best virus software? Best wireless router? Best accounting software? Best computer. Best this. Best that.

There is no best anything. Best is relative to your needs, your budget, your nous, you technical skills and in the end it all boils down to some sort of experience. Mine. Yours. Your friend’s. The collective wisdom of a crowd of strangers.

You can pay a little or a lot or zero money for software that does what it is supposed to do. The question is whether the software is going to do it well. But more importantly no matter how much money you pay you can’t get away from spending some time. It takes time to research and if you get something that is crappy or hard to use or doesn’t really do the job you want it to do you’ll spend a lot of time stuffing around with it.

So this is my current experience. Maybe it will save you some time and some money.

Over the course of many years…let’s say since 2003 when I had my first devasting experience with a virus…I’ve used all of the following virus and firewall and anti-malware software.

• Norton
• McAfee
• Bit Defender
• PC Tools
• AVG

When I say I’ve used I mean I’ve paid a subscription, installed and used for at least one subscription period or longer on at least three PC’s more. I’ve also helped many small business and friends and family install and use these products.

For years and before virus software came bundled with firewall software I used ZoneAlarm’s free firewall.

I ditched Norton, McAfee, Bit Defender and PC Tools because they all became too bloated. They take up too much computer resource to update or to run. And when my husband threatens to throw his notebook computer out the window every time it appears to come to a screaming halt (caused by virus software updates) then I know it is time to ditch.

I used AVG early in it’s historical life. I was always suspicious of it and in the end it let viruses slip through that at the time it simply shouldn’t have. Once burned twice shy so I never tried the paid version.

Last year I paid (by way of Trial Pay and this is not a recommendation) for a one-year subscription to Zone Alarm’s bundled version of virus and internet security software. After a good year’s run with it, I recently renewed my subscription, upgrading to their eXtreme Security product. But whoa! Every time I wanted to download something using Firefox it spit the dummy, produced an error message about being unstable, shut down my Firefox (which really pissed me off since I usually had at least 8 windows open). After a week (hoping that an update would fix the problem) I reported the problem to Zone Alarm (via online chat). I seemed to be the only person in the world who had this problem.

I asked for my money back (and they promptly refunded). Then after swearing that this is all a racket anyway (really isn’t someone out there getting paid to write viruses?) I also swore never again to pay good money for malware protection and I started my search for a money-free good reliable product.

Security Software That I Am Currently Using

Here’s what I am using (so far)…

Microsoft’s Totally Free Security Essentials

After dreadful experiences with Microsoft’s Defender firewall, I would normally stay away from any virus protection Microsoft offered. But I decided to try Security Essentials after my husband put a rave review under my nose. And I really like it. It is quiet and unobtrusive, efficient and best of all it works very very well on low configured XP machines. I’ve only been using it for two months but so far so good.

PC Tools Threatfire

I am also using PC Tools Threatfire (the free version) as an added measure because I rarely do a complete system scan and I like the concept of the behaviour-based real-time prevention (compared to other virus protection that relies on prior knowledge of virus patterns and necessitates regular updates). On Vista (with 3GB of ram) this extra protection doesn’t seem to impact on resources. I would be wary doubling up like this on an XP machine.

Ad-Aware

In addition to virus software, one needs occasionally to scan for spyware culprits. The alternative Spyware Doctor seems to do a good job but it isn’t free and it is resource hungry. I definitely would not let it run all the time.

Ad-aware was the only malware software that found a dormant key-logger on my PC. None of the virus scanners paid or free discovered it. I don’t let Ad-aware run all the time because there is a noticeable impact on system resources. I fire it up for a complete system scan about once a month.

The Final Measure

I have two final measures of good security (virus, firewall, malware detection) software. It is whether or not my 72-year old Mother can easily use it on her 6 year-old Toshiba laptop (XP 500MB of memory) without degradation in performance and whether my 70-year old Aunt using it on her 4 year-old Dell desktop can go at least 6 months without getting a virus.

I will report back.