Scooby Soon!

I have a neighbour that I owe a few favours too so I am sorting out his PC for him, i had a quick check over of it last night and its infected with tons of malware, the computers almost grinding to a halt. It has numerous pop ups, pretend security centre (the real one has been disabled by some rogue program).

It has about 10 malware programs that I can not remove so I am wiping the whole lot and starting a fresh install of win xp, will there be any problems of the malware/viruses stored in the memory? or will they memory be wiped as soon as the computer is shut down?

Also what essentials do I need to install to try and stop this happening again?
I think they must of clicked on a advert that had been hacked and it had one of those windows type looking messages saying "your computer has a virus do want to clean it" YES and once they did that is snowballed Would an ad blocker that can be added on to firefox help or is there something that would prevent something happening if they clicked on one of these dodgy adds again?

I was going to put the following software on after i have put a fresh install of XP:

Spybot
Ad-aware
Firefox (with ad Blocking)
Avast?

any other suggestions or alternatives? Also they have two primary school kids is there anything like nat nanny that they can use to try and stop them clicking on or going to dodgy sites? (free software!)

thanks!

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

The memory will be wiped on reboot .. used to have to wait 8 seconds in the old days .. so no harm in doing that I guess..

When you say Malware are you talking about Virus's ? More likely to be spyware as Malware is more malicious coding than ads and money making. Not that it matters obviously.

I would suggest Spybot without a doubt .. loads of people on here love NOD.. personally I use AVG and have not had any issues .. that with Spybot.. but its down to you.

Firefox is a good idea but I wouldnt put too many "safety" programs on there as each one takes up some system resources .. I would stick with Spybot and NOD and get them to scan once a week.

Scooby Soon!

yes they have a few .exe files on there that have trojans and viruses in them but they are more the gambling/money making keylog type things in stead of the sort of virus that just wants to shut your computer down. if you try and reun internet explorer it wont let you access and virus software site (mcafee/norton or even download.com) so its a real PITA!

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

I would suggest getting another CLEAN pc and downloading all the updates required for the infected one and loading them onto a CD.

You should be downloading Spybot, Windows Defender (I know, but it helps) Adaware. Most importantly XP SERVICE PACK 3. Buy a bloody Home AV solution. Whichever except Symantec as it's poo.

then WIPE the old p.c. (XP install CD and wipe existing partition), and unplug the ethernet cable.

After the install has completed, install Service Pack 3. That is the very first thing to do after the scratch install

Then load up all the protection software and then and only then plug the ethernet cable in to allow 'net access and run the driver updates

Then educate your neighbour in things NOT to click when browsing.

Pumpkin

hijack this...

I would turn off system restore as well until its clean.