Maximum PC

Hi MAXPC my beloved,
I have a virus/worm question. No, I don't have worms...physically!
Anyway, I use Win XP SP2 & I keep getting this Trojan:Win32/Ramnit.A .Which installs watermark.exe. If left untreated it fires up multiple svchost.exe instances & brings my PC to it's knees !!
I understand that it is really bad...changing exe's, html's , pdf's....but how do you "get rid" of it !! I mean, I read up on it & people just reformat.
It is a big pain...I had to reformat 4 times this month lol !!! Is there no way to prevent it, is there any security software written specifically to defend against it? I read somewhere that it can install code on your PC just by a "mouseover" on a web page, OMG !!
I have Zonealarm firewall installed .
Thx
David Styres
Canada

PS- I have revamped my surfing habits..so far, so good.

That is a bad Worm/Trojan.

The reason everyone recommends reformatting when getting that is because it can modify executable's and cause system instability at will. There isn't a real good way to get rid of it. Sometimes you can remove it, but it is a lot of work.

And if/when you do a reformat and fresh install, please, for the love of God, install SP3!

n0b0dykn0ws

That jumped out at me as soon as I read his post.

So SP3 has closed the door on this vulnerability?
Downloading now !!
Thx

Not necessarily, but SP2 is no longer supported, in fact, you haven't been receiving critical updates since July of last year!

You mentioned your firewall software, what about anti-virus and anti-malware?

You say you've reformatted, but have you scanned applications that you have saved before running them on your freshly installed OS?

Install XP on a fully (quick will do) formatted drive with no network capabilities (no network cable/wireless card attached) --> install latest service pack (SP3 here) while still offline --> install AV/AW/FW while still offline --> connect to the internet to download latest Microsoft critical updates, AV/AW definitions.

There is a program I use called CTUpdate that will allow you to download MS updates for various products, including Office. You can then run these updates while offline. This is your best bet if you have a safe/clean computer that you can use to download the files to, then burn to disc, put on an external drive, etc...

n0b0dykn0ws

Hey n0b0dykn0ws,

Any idea how that program compares to AutoPatcher? I love AutoPatcher but the program has quite a bit of delay in getting recent updates.

I had automatic updates shut off
I use AVS anti virus

CTUpdate downloads the updates directly from Microsoft, so unless you have bad DNS entries then you should be pretty safe and up to date.

n0b0dykn0ws

AutoPatcher does as well, but it takes them sometimes 2-3 weeks to get the updates available for download. I'm hoping CTUpdate is a little quicker.

It's usually Wednesday after patch Tuesday at the latest.

CTUpdate generates a log, so you can always check that manually as well.

n0b0dykn0ws