Virus on XP (for chaslang)

Original thread ( not closed ) is HERE.

 

Ramnit infections have really become quit nasty and dangerous. We could attempt to remove it, and we have had some success in the past, but recently it has become even more trouble to remove. It is really safer to just bite the bullet and do a clean reinstall.

The problem is that the damage caused by this infection really makes a PC unreliable/untrustworthy. PE file infectors like Ramnit, Virut,.... etc can infect all executable files (DLL, EXE, SCR....and many more and also HTML). These infections can open back doors that truly may compromise your computer and your security. These backdoors could allow a remote attacker to access and instruct the infected computer to download and execute more malicious files.

In many cases the infected files (which could number in the thousands) cannot be disinfected properly by your anti-virus or by other scanning tools. Also when disinfection is attempted, the files often become corrupted and the system may become unstable or irrepairable. The longer Ramnit remains on a computer, the more files it may infect and/or corrupt so the degree of infection can vary.

Ramnit is commonly spread via a flash drive (usb, pen, thumb, jump) infection where it copies the Ramnit worm using a random file name. The infection is often contracted by visiting remote, crack and keygen sites. These type of sites are a major source of system infection.

So all the above being said, and please do take serious note of the warnings, do you really wish to attempt cleaning even though the stability and security of your be cannot be guaranteed? And also note that we could spend a lot of time trying to fix it and still fail due to the number of files that have been infected. What would you like to do?

You can try cleaning by continuing to run the eSet scans, back to back, until they come up clean.

 

Let us know what you decide to do. And happy holidays to you as well.

 

Yes, it is a particularly insidious virus. Once it gets a good hold, there is little that you can do other than a reformat and clean install.

You are most welcome. I just wish we could have gotten to it sooner when there was still an outside chance to remove it.