Davka
2007-02-18, 22:47
This one's a real pain. The machine I'm cleaning belongs to a teenage girl, and it was so infested I would have wiped and started over, but she lost her OS recovery CD, so I'm stuck with a cleanup.
After running AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Hijack This and a few other more obscure programs, I seem to have removed everything but one nasty little persistent critter that Spybot identifies as "Command Service." I turned the service off, disabled it, deleted it, re-ran Spybot in safe mode, and it managed to pull out 2 of the 5 instances of the malware. But Spybot still finds 3 instances, which it cannot remove, even when I allow it to run on reboot.
Any ideas?
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BTW - here's a more detailed list of what I've tried so far, just to minimize redundant suggestions:
Programs:
- AVG free (safe mode and standard)
- Ad-Aware (safe mode and standard)
- Adware Away (safe mode and standard)
- Hijack This (doesn't see the file)
- Spybot (safe mode and standard)
- smitRem.exe (safe mode)
- Kaspersky free trial
- TrendMicro online scan (housecall)
Actions:
- Deleted the service via DOS command (sc delete cmdservice)
- Removed all references to command.exe from the registry
- Searched the hard drive for command.exe, including hidden and system files (not found)
- Invoked the hallowed name of Foo Bar while pounding on the keyboard rhythmically
Alas, the computer gods are not smiling on me today.
After running AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Hijack This and a few other more obscure programs, I seem to have removed everything but one nasty little persistent critter that Spybot identifies as "Command Service." I turned the service off, disabled it, deleted it, re-ran Spybot in safe mode, and it managed to pull out 2 of the 5 instances of the malware. But Spybot still finds 3 instances, which it cannot remove, even when I allow it to run on reboot.
Any ideas?
-------------------------
BTW - here's a more detailed list of what I've tried so far, just to minimize redundant suggestions:
Programs:
- AVG free (safe mode and standard)
- Ad-Aware (safe mode and standard)
- Adware Away (safe mode and standard)
- Hijack This (doesn't see the file)
- Spybot (safe mode and standard)
- smitRem.exe (safe mode)
- Kaspersky free trial
- TrendMicro online scan (housecall)
Actions:
- Deleted the service via DOS command (sc delete cmdservice)
- Removed all references to command.exe from the registry
- Searched the hard drive for command.exe, including hidden and system files (not found)
- Invoked the hallowed name of Foo Bar while pounding on the keyboard rhythmically
Alas, the computer gods are not smiling on me today.