Virus removal, PC World-style

"Martin Warby" wrote in message
Surely all this should be protected a proper firewall at network/internet
boundary.A local firewall on each machine can then be used to ensure only
certain appliactions can acsess the internet,this should stop a trojan
from reporting home.OK you may still have the trojan on your machine but
if its cut off from the rest of the world its doing no harm.


It sure as hell puts you out of the low-hanging fruit department! But then,
you probably wouldn't have caught a worm ever if you regularly patch your
system and use a PF/IDS! ;o)




a

"Parish" wrote in message
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Nobody's doubting that the virus removal tools can do their job -
we're not talking about a virus here though!!

OK, Blaster (which I assume you are referring to) is a worm, not a
virus, but the term 'virus' seems to be used nowadays as a collective
noun for any kind of malicious infection; even Symantec who correctly
define virus, worm, and trojan in the NAV Help file put the Blaster, and
other worm, removal tools under *Virus* removal tools on their website.


That's not actually quite what I meant - I wasn't just being pedantic about
the virus/worm definition. I meant that after a system compromise ...
whatever might have caused the compromise ... you are left with a system
that may or may not have been "customised" (to avoid overuse of the word
Trojan!) by some intruder. That's what I meant about not talking about a
virus - what you're left with then is the possibility of a system still
being exposed by much more clever means.

I suppose a crude analogy would be getting mugged by someone. They (the
worm/virus) punch you (your PC) in the face, thus cutting you badly. Some
nasty person (the script kiddy ... or perhaps a darker force) with an
infectious blood-borne disease (damn, my analogy mentions a virus!!) comes
along and presses an open cut of theirs against your bleeding face while
you're unconscious on the street and nobody's around. You go to hospital.
The doctor (AVD software) stitches you up (disinfects) properly and beyond
doubt you are cured of the cut face. However - how can you be sure you
didn't pick up something from the nasty person by blood transfer? In fact,
you don't even know they did it to you and have no way of knowing that it
happened. Until it's too late.



a