Kaj Haulrich wrote:
Dear list...
I am sorry for bothering you with this, but knowing that some of you
have Windows on your box, I rely on your forgiveness :
A week ago I had to buy a new PC for one of my daughters (14 years
old). She absolutely needed Windows in order to run some special,
school-related apps. The PC came with WinXP pre-installed.
The first thing I did was to install Mozilla, OpenOffice and some
sort of firewall, called ZoneAlarm. Now, I thought it was safe....
Suddenly, when she tries to send an e-mail (from within Mozilla, of
course, I'm not THAT stupid), up pops a message from our ISP saying
that the box is compromized, accordingly the smtp-server won't
accept the mail. In fact, her IP was blacklisted.
Some on-line security scans, revealed no less than 159 trojans,
worms and viruses !
After heavy googling around, I purchased a spyware/trojan scanner
called XoftSpy, which cleaned most of the shit. But nevertheless, a
spyware trojan keeps coming in (SAHAgent). No matter what I do.
(The bugger doesn't show up in ControlPanel --> Remove software).
Well, I know next to nothing about Windows, but before I subscribe
to a windows-list (which I would hate, really), I would like to ask
if you can recommend :
1. A good, reliable firewall for Windows (preferably OSS and free) ?
2. A spyware/trojan/worm cleaner capable of removing all malware ?
3. Shutting down the whole kaboodle and wait for SP2 ?
Many thanks and apologies in advance
Kaj Haulrich.
If you purchased this box with XP on it and they didn't give you XP
installation discs then they usually supply backup file somewhere on the
HD in a spare partition.If so it might well be worthwhile reinstalling
from that. they are usually some drive image type of backup file and
don't take very long to reinstall a brand new pristine condition OS as
originally supplied. That's the best way to get rid of virus problems,
provided that they have not spread to bios and partition tables, in
which case it's a different ball game.
John
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