Who Do I Believe?

NiteHawk · Nov 23, 2006

Despite the fact I have three anti spyware programs, ( Spy Sweeper, Spyware Doctor, and Windows Defender), installed on my system, I still managed to pick up the worm W32.Alcra.B . I am also running Norton Internet Security with Norton AV 2005. On visiting Symantec's home page, I am told that this worm is a low rated threat. On the other hand, Webroot (Spy Sweeper) is telling me this worm is a bad a$$. Fortunately, I think I managed to get rid of it, but I'm not 100% sure. I have done several scans using the above spy ware protection and nothing has been found.

If all else fails, would formatting the hard drive and re-installing everything get rid of this pest?

Also, who would you believe, Norton or Webroot?

Any assistance from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

chaslang · Nov 24, 2006

NiteHawk said:

Despite the fact I have three anti spyware programs, ( Spy Sweeper, Spyware Doctor, and Windows Defender), installed on my system, I still managed to pick up the worm W32.Alcra.B . I am also running Norton Internet Security with Norton AV 2005. On visiting Symantec's home page, I am told that this worm is a low rated threat. On the other hand, Webroot (Spy Sweeper) is telling me this worm is a bad a$$. Fortunately, I think I managed to get rid of it, but I'm not 100% sure. I have done several scans using the above spy ware protection and nothing has been found.

If all else fails, would formatting the hard drive and re-installing everything get rid of this pest?

Also, who would you believe, Norton or Webroot?

Any assistance from anyone would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Welcome to Majorgeeks!

You are just misreading how both companies are presenting the data. Symantec is just implying that not many people get this infection. And Webroot is just saying that it can cause some problems. Even Symantec says that. I quote

Payload: May cause Computer instability.

Causes system instability: Attempts to disable several programs.

Click to expand...

This is a fairly easy problem to fix but to be sure that you are really clean! I would need you to run the below.

Run ALL the steps in this Sticky thread READ & RUN ME FIRST Before Asking for Support

Make sure you check version numbers and get all updates.

Very Important: Make sure you tell us the results from running the tutorial...was anything found? Were you unable to complete any of the scans?...Were you unable to download any of the tools?...Did you do the on-line scans as suggested? etc.

After doing ALL of the above you still have a problem make sure you have booted to normal mode and run the steps in the below link to properly use HijackThis and attach a log:

Downloading, Installing, and Running HijackThis

Make sure you also rename HijackThis.exe as suggested in the procedures. Use analyse.exe for the new name. This is very important due to some new infections going around.

When you return to make your next post, make sure you attach the following logs and that you have run these scans in the following order too:

CounterSpy

AVG Antispyware log - ONLY IF NEEDED you were not able to run CounterSpy

Bitdefender - from step 6

Panda Scan - from step 6

runkeys.txt - the log from GetRunKey.bat

newfiles.txt - the log from ShowNew.bat

HijackThis

NOTE: You can only attach 3 files in a single message so it will require that you use two messages to attach all of these logs!

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Who Do I Believe?

NiteHawk Private E-2

chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member