StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I've just recently encountered this newfangled malware - detailed here and I partially resolved it by deleting the file from my Drive C -> WINDOWS -> System -> Drivers folder. But I notice that the thing comes back online whenever I turn on my bittorrent program, or something. Right now, my PC's stable, but I don't know - it might come back. It did when I turned my bittorrent on, although it disappeared when I restarted my PC.

Now, how does one permanently go about killing this damn thing? From that link above, the virus seems pretty new, so I guess I must've been pretty lucky with this thang.

nuke the site from orbit.

Prevx will nuke it (may cost money) but it also gives some fairly detailed information on it which may help you erase it manually.

Someone's gonna have to talk me through this. I can use my computer now, but there may still be some lingering difficulties. I've been murdering some suspicious looking files, but I'm no Witch Smeller Pursuivant. Any additional advice would be highly appreciated - and I'm a stingy miser, I'm not buying no anti-virus when I can get free anti-virals and cheap soup!

Shroom Man 777 wrote:I'm not buying no anti-virus when I can get free anti-virals and cheap soup!

Well, "you get what you pay for" is certainly true. After some ten-fifteen years of computer usage and heavy online activity, I've never had a virus.

Now I experience difficulty in opening my Windows Task Manager. Even after I open it and have looked it up, after I minimize it I can't seem to be able to open it. Neither can I open my MSN Messenger, and other things. It's like my computer's losing its capabilities.

EDIT:

I can't even shut down properly - I have to manually turn my machine on and off!

Format the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Unless you have some absurdly pressing reason not to, formatting is the only remotely practical way of fully getting rid of this.

The computer is old and has old files that are sometimes used by my folks, so I can't just reformat it.

Any ideas on grueling and agonizing methods to excise this plague from my computer without ruining my precious files would be highly appreciated, mangs.

Get the files off the computer. Preferably sometimes last month, but "right now" will do. Seriously. You're playing with fire if you keep them on an infected PC with no backups, and you shouldn't do one damn thing until you get copies.

Just be careful that when you get the data off that hard drive, you don't infect the other computer too.

Hawkwings wrote:Just be careful that when you get the data off that hard drive, you don't infect the other computer too.

Best bet -- download a Linux live cd (like this Ubuntu one), burn it to disc, then boot with it and copy files over from it. You're probably safer if you can only copy over documents (as opposed to applications). If you can get it from another, non-infected computer, that's also a bonus. Finally you can pay to have them ship you a copy if you're not sure you can get it successfully.

In addition to that, run an antivirus and several antimalware scans on the data after you pull it off the computer. Free trial of F-Prot is a good option for antivirus, and MalwareBytes and A2 are great antimalware file scanners.

Hell, you could try these before you wipe the computer to see if that cleans it up.

Online Armor, which came with A2, has helped me lots! Thanks!