Topic: Trojan - Hook

[Grendel]

My wife's laptop is infected with a trojan program.  It's called *something*-hook.  McAfee detected and quarantined it, but based on what I am reading, I'm not sure it's truly gone.

Any recommendations on a solid anti-malware program?  Free would be nice, but I am willing to pay to not have to worry about it in the future.

[Andro-blahhhhh]

Hmmm, can you afford a reformat? That's usually the 100% sure fire way to get rid of it. Did you delete it from quarantine? McAfee does not always automatically delete for some stupid reason. I'm learning it right now from a copy my work gave me.

[Grendel]

I'll try to delete it from quarantine.  I'm liking the idea of a reformat unless there is a solid malware killer out there.  There is nothing critical on that machine.

[Smonkey]

Avira free.

[Sipin]

I'll try to delete it from quarantine.  I'm liking the idea of a reformat unless there is a solid malware killer out there.  There is nothing critical on that machine.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/
This is the one my work has been using.
Best part....free!

[shakes]

I use this too

[Grendel]

I'm going to have to do a full reformat.   

The malware program found and killed a bunch of stuff (14 items, I think), but now the machine is plagued with error messages that interfere with normal use.

I have a question:  Rather than reloading XP, should I just try some different OS?  Linux, maybe?  Any suggestions?  The laptop is really just used for browsing.

[Sipin]

Why not install 7 on it?

It's free and will work until next year...

[shakes]

Dumb question but did you reboot after using maleware? I sometimes have to reboot after I use the program.

[jeff]

How old is the computer? If you want to just try linux to see how it performs, you can try damnsmalllinux, puppylinux, or one of the other live cd distros. They will run from CD and will not affect your current OS.

[Grendel]

I have rebooted a couple of times.  It appears that my effort to get rid of the trojan bjorked other files.  Now error messages appear almost every 3 to 4 seconds and have to be closed before the next function can be performed.  It's frustrating.

I'm trying to find my old XP disk, but no luck so far.  I also can't find a d/l for xp.  That seems to leave me with buying xp again or trying another OS.

The laptop may not have the horse power to handle w7, so my options are limited.

I am considering Linux, but I'm concerned about getting bogged down with a host of new issues.

If I were King, I would hang the makers of malware and let the crows eat their eyes.

[MistaObvious]

Nice thing about Linux is that people all over the world are constantly working on fixes for any issues that may arise.  In most cases, your initial install will work perfectly.

Windows 7 actually uses less resources than Vista, in case you're interested.  I actually found that on the Dell I gave my wife, 7 worked better than XP did.

From the sounds of it, a fresh OS installation is pretty much all you can really do at this point.  Anything else might leave you fixing one thing after another until you throw it out the window (which is what I would do in your position).

[Grendel]

Thanks, guys.

Given that to buy a legal copy of xp costs $200, I'm tempted to buy a netbook for $300.  I'll probably still try to get linux on the laptop to see if I can save the money.

[Grendel]

I reformatted the laptop and installed Linux (Ubuntu).  I'm astonished by how much better the system runs without all the Windows crap (and without the years of accumulated rubbish).  I don't know whether there are a lot of programs out there that are compatible with the OS, but the laptop is now working great as a sort of large netbook.

[MistaObvious]

There is a free Office equivalent you can find for Linux that also handles a good deal of the formats associated with M$ Office.  Can't remember the name of it, but I'm sure if you don't already have it with your install of Ubuntu that it shouldn't be too hard to find.  Really, there's a ton of crap you can get that is an equivalent to Windows applications you're probably used to running.  Just have to look around for them.