How long does combofix take to run? - new insight

Discussion in 'Malware Help - MG (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by ylidor, Oct 30, 2011.

  1. ylidor

    ylidor Private E-2

    I read in a previous thread (http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=1118784) a recommendation to kill combofix after 2 hours of activity without resolution.

    I want to report here my experience which was completely different. Yesterday, combofix was running for about 3-4 hours while the dos screen was showing the following message:

    "Scanning for infected files...
    This typically doesn't take more than 10 minutes
    However, scan time for badly infected machines may easily double"

    Since there was no error message and I could visualize continued hard drive activity, I have decided to go to sleep and see what will happen in the morning.

    When I got back to my laptop about 6 hours later there were a couple of window messages on the screen (I did not pay attention to them -> just clicked OK and they disappeared) and then Combofix screen changed to the following message:

    "You are infected with the Rootkit.ZeroAccess! that has inserted itself into your TCP/IP stack. This is a particularly difficult infection....etc." (Mind you, this was after I have previously "successfully" treated this infection with TDSSKILLER, tough with some neccesary modifications).

    Shortly after Combofix rebooted and when it came back up it had started to go through the "completed stage_1 to 50" within about 10 minutes after the reboot, and completed its job. From what I (non professional) can decipher from the Combofix report, Combofix was able to delete the files associated with this Trojan.

    The moral of the story: If the hard drive shows activity - do not kill Combofix even if it takes it many hours to start going through the various stages.
     
  2. Kestrel13!

    Kestrel13! Super Malware Fighter - Major Dilemma Staff Member

    Yes, it's always best to wait ideally but some people do not have as much patience as you do. Or sometimes, malware can block Combofix from running. I am very glad that you let it run through overnight and had success. Is everything alright again for you now? You would be welcome to attach logs from running our procedures if you still sense any imposters onboard.
     
  3. ylidor

    ylidor Private E-2

    Thanks for the reply.

    So far so good - touch the wood! I ran several other anti-rootkit softwares and all of them reported clean slate and no sign of active infection. Also, the laptop behaves normally again. I'll just keep an eye on any abnormal symptom for a while, since these rootkit Trojans can hide in nasty places before they reactivate themselves.

    Thanks for the offer and your great work. If/when I'll ran into future problems that I would not be able to solve independently, I'll post the logs here and ask for your help.
     
  4. Kestrel13!

    Kestrel13! Super Malware Fighter - Major Dilemma Staff Member

    Do you have time to do this? :confused

    I want you to run TDSSKiller so refer to the below for how to do so.

    TDSSkiller - How to run


    Please also download MBRCheck to your desktop
    • Double click MBRCheck.exe to run (vista and Win 7 right click and select Run as Administrator)
    • It will show a Black screen with some information that will contain either the below line if no problem is found:
      • Done! Press ENTER to exit...
    • Or you will see more information like below if a problem is found:
      • Found non-standard or infected MBR.
      • Enter 'Y' and hit ENTER for more options, or 'N' to exit:
    • Either way, just choose to exit the program at this point since we want to see only the scan results to begin with.
    • MBRCheck will create a log named similar to MBRCheck_07.16.10_00.32.33.txt which is random based on date and time.
    • Attach this log to your next message. (See: HOW TO: Attach Items To Your Post )
     

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