Infected computer

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My husband's parents need urgent computer help. They have a trojan dialer that's making calls from Canada to Australia. They also have a couple of other general viruses that won't go away. How do you get rid of that stuff? We've already gone through all the standard removal instructions - removing the bad stuff via Norton Antivirus with the computer in safe mode, then editing the registry. Everything works for a day then the error messages etc keep coming back. They've also been told (by their ISP I think) that the computer has been hacked, possible identity theft. Help! (It's an older computer with Norton 2004 (up to date), 56k internet, Windows 98 SE.)

Only way to really wipe that stuff out is to use the system recovery disks that came with the computer. That, however, will wipe out anything that was not shipped with the computer, including all your e-mail, any programs you might want (but you've got the software, right?), and anthing you put on the computer since you bought it.

I'm no fan of Windows XP, however, it has a little more advanced recovery stuff if you know how to use it.....which might not work against trojans, but probably does if you're careful.

A good firewall will help....but maybe not this computer.

Disconnecting the modem (if you're on dialup) also helps.....no wire, no problem.

A good Linux system (not windows at all) helps, if it's installed on the machine when you buy it, and the machine is a lot cheaper too, but those animals are hard to come by.

So it looks like the cheapest, fastest, and most destructive cure for your system is to reload it from the system recovery disks that came with it....or that you had to make...(tell me you made them).

Good Luck
Beentheredonethat several times, as a matter of fact

The computer doesn't have recovery disks. Is it too late to make some now? Everything still works despite the presence of the trojan and viruses. The computer used to belong to my husband and I and we gave it to his parents when we upgraded a couple of years ago. It does have the Win98 cd and software cds and we've formatted the hard drive before... sounds like we might have to do it again. I was hoping there would be some way around that though - when we've formatted in the past we had a hard time convincing the computer that it does indeed have a cd-rom, which has to be functional to load everything.

I would suggest backing up anything important, then reformating. The Win 98 disk should have drivers for the cd rom when you boot from it. If not you can make a boot disk in windows 98. You can go to control panel, then add/remove program then click the startup disk tab. The backup utitlity is located in the accessories folder of your start menu. (start>Programs>accessories>system tools>backup. If you want ensure you really get rid of the virus(es) you might want to use the fdisk utiltiy located on your Win 98 boot disk, if you know how to do that. Also when you do a backup make sure you backup all the drivers. Then when the win 98 is loaded run another virri scan. Let me know if you need anymore assistance.EDIT: Norton Antivirus should have a tool to make a recovery disk, that should also help you out. EDIT 2: Once you have the OS installed you might want to download a firewall. Try Zone Alarm since it's free. Also a spyware remover such as spybot search and destroy and ad aware should help you as well.

neongrl,get Spybot-S&D:- http://www.safer-networking.org/ always helps to have extra programmes for searching.
Was there a firewall on the system prior to the trouble?


I agree with beentheredonethat,on the linux alternative,as the computer spec hasn't been mentioned,
Send off for a copy of Ubuntu linux: https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ it costs nothing,and neither does the delivery,it's a free and more convenient way of getting linux,Ubuntu will give the installation disc and a live disc (allows the operating system to be booted from disc,risk free) with each pack,the person can ask for more than one pack if wanting to give them to others,and there's various versions for different architectures-x86 (PC,most will need this one),x86-64 (for 64 bit processors) and PPC (Macs).
Takes a while for delivery,in my experience but worth it.
Someone will have to install it for them,if they're not sure about the process as it's a lot more manual and less graphical than installing windows.
Linux attracts very little spyware/viruses etc,the majority of crapware is written for windows.
It is best to dual boot (ubuntu gives this option) which is having the choice of choosing between two operating systems,so the windows partition can be kept for windows related things,maybe for camera,scanner ,gaming etc.
One of the problems with linux is modem compatibility,it's a plug and play experience for me as i'm using cable broadband but a lot of ADSL modems are not compatible with linux,and others will need linux drivers finding for them.
Not sure on dial up modems within linux though.

OK, you already point out It's a windows based computer (Win98SE, I'm all too familiar with the problems that has), reinstalling the entire operating system usually works to clear any problems EXCEPT security, that's where a firewall comes in handy (ZoneAlarm usually does a good job, I used to use it before I got my broadband router and Linux). Just make sure to backup everything important beforehand and also make sure you have a copy of ZoneAlarm on a CD so you don't have to connect to the internet unfirewalled in order to get that.

I can't suggest an awful lot more, apart from maybe getting Linux instead which is usually better from a security point of view

Thanks for the suggestions. Parents ended up taking the computer to a pro to get fixed - my husband and I would have tried but they felt guilty about inconveniencing us with it... the other guy managed to remove all the viruses without reformatting and now we've installed AVG and ZoneAlarm. So far so good...

People have to take computers to pros just to reinstall there OS? Oh man I wish people would pay me just to reinstall there OS easy work.