Week 35 Article 01 - How to Clean the dreaded Trojan.Vundo virus

Hi to you all

Trojan.Vundo has to be one of the most annoying virus/Trojan that I have encountered for a long time now. More because, yours truly got his personal computer infected hehe. Well I took it to be more of a positive than a negative. Now, how I got infected, you ask?

For months now, I have been running without any Antivirus software on my PC. The ones that I did trial were too buggy and memory/CPU intensive and I just could not be bothered with them anymore. So when my Norton IS subscription ran out, I just resorted to plain old common sense to keep my computer free from the baddies. Well it all went to plan until I had to download a program that I really needed. Unknown to me, it was laced with Vundo!! Once I had unzipped the download and started the install, then only did I realise I had been HAD. My desktop shrunk to 60% of it size because the folder details screen was taking the 40% of it now. My taskbar now displayed Virus Alert!

Well it took me some time but I finally got it out (would have been less time consuming to just reinstall but I just didnt want to give in to a virus/trojan .. its a pride thing hehe.

BTW here is the article from Symantec about this trojan and how to remove it
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2004-112111-3912-99&tabid=2

Listed below are the steps I followed.
1. Did a System Restore of my computer to a point before the virus infection.
2. Downloaded SuperAntispyware and did a full system scan and cleanup
3. Downloaded TweakXP and went through all the policies that the trojan had applied on my pc (the trojan disables access to the Task Manager, Control Panel among other other applets> and removed them.
4. Went into the Regional Settings of my computer and removed the prefix Virus Alert! that the trojan had put in the time/date formats
5. Installed McAfee Internet Suite trial and performed a full scan

After having Norton on my system for a year, I had come to a point where I despised all Antivirus software because they just made my computer crawl to a standstill! My own opinion about antivirus is that it should run in the background with such a light foot that you hardly notice it, be it a brand new pc or one a year or two old. I had tried McAfee couple of years back and it was the same. But I do confess I had let my prejudice about McAfee run wild and had not tried it for ages. My recent excursion with McAfee has left me with nothing but smiles. I hardly notice McAfee running on my computer apart from its icon in my task bar. I have also tried TrendMicro Internet Security in the past and I loved it as well.

My advice, stay as far away as possible from Norton. Give McAfee or TrendMicro a try and I am sure you will not regret it. I am in the last few days of my trial, after which I will buy a years worth of subscription.

Have a great day.