I've learned some good rules of thumb after fighting with malware in the past week, I thought I'd pass them along. When fighting malware/spyware/hijackers and their ilk:
1. In WinXP, disable system restore before cleaning (My Computer, Properties, Restore) otherwise they'll keep reinfecting themselves (and anti-virus scanners won't see them).
2. Sometimes it takes several different spyware packages to clean your system (I use SpyBot, Adaware, and HijackThis -- sometimes getting different results).
2b. HijackThis rocks!
3. Sometimes it takes a couple of different runs by these programs to get everying (and don't forget to update their signatures).
4. There is almost nothing that will be broken in your computer if you remove it from the Run line in your registry (if you don't know what this means, then forget this point...).
5. There's more than ONE Run line in your registry!
6. When looking at the files running at startup, do an Internet search on them to find out what they are ("are you a good .exe or a bad .exe?").
7. Don't forget about the Startup group, autoexec.bat, and config.sys -- yes, they're still there!
8. Don't neglect your hosts file (c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) -- for most home users it should be empty or not even there.
9. If you're not sure about a process that's running, use task manager to view the processes - End the process, and see what happens. This will not break anything, a reboot will restart critical processes if it's a needed process, but in the meantime it will help you determine if you REALLY need it running, you'd be suprised to see how many "extras" are running when not needed.
10. McAfee has a free Trojan scanner called Stinger -- it works, and it rocks!
11. There's a freeware anti-virus program that's gaining popularity: ClamWin. Check it out.
12. Use FPort (free from www.foundstone.com) to see what programs are making network connections.
13. Don't forget the Microsoft mantra: "updates and patches."
That's about all I can think of off the top-o-my-head.
Cheers!
