How to remove virus and trojan

Well I never planned to get technical on my very first hub. I heard about hubpages from one of my friends and decided to have an account of my own and write about anything that might be interesting and might help other people. Recently I had to sweat a lot to get rid of a Trojan on my laptop; pop came the idea to write about how I managed to get rid of it.

I don't know how but recently I got my system infected with a Trojan. On every startup the my antivirus used to start scanning and every now and then warning popup used to come on my screen which was very annoying. I used following process to get rid of this problem. I think using this process one can get rid of almost all virus and Trojan but I do not guarantee it as I have tested it only for this Trojan (win32 gen{other}) that effected my system.

Here are the steps that I performed but before that I disabled my antivirus and firewall. I did not had to do this but if any P2P file-sharing program is installed then it should be removed (yea I know it sounds like a big headache :( ).

First of all I downloaded a file from a link http://www.ctrlaltdel.dk/Fix_download.exe. Yes, I too thought that this file itself could be infectious but don't worry it is harmless. Executing this file (double clicking) will download four cleaning programs namely CCleaner.exe, MalwarebytesAM.exe, ComboFix.exe and HijackThis.exe.

Double click CCleaner.exe and let the program install. During the install Uncheck "Add CCleaner Yahoo! Toolbar" as it is not required. Running the CCleaner will remove temporary internet files, saved passwords on browser, browser history, cookies etc but the user will have the option to pick and choose.

Double click MalwarebytesAM.exe to install the program. At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish. If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.

Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan. When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results. The result shows a list of infections, be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected. If Malwarebytes needs to restart the computer during the cleansing, let it do so.

At the end a log file will be generated, save it, we will require it later. At the end of this most of the infections will be cleared and one may skip further steps but if the problem persists then one should go ahead with the steps mentioned below.

Double click ComboFix.exe and follow the instrictions. If the programs request to update, let it do so. Please note, that once you start combofix you should not click anywhere on the combofix window as it can cause the program to stall. In fact, when combofix is running, do not touch your computer at all and just take a break as it may take a while for it to complete.

When finished, it will produce a log file located at C:\combofix.txt. we will require it later.

Double click HijackThis.exe and it will run a quick install. (If you are a Vista user, you need to right-click HijackThis.exe and select "Run as Administrator"). Once the program is installed a window will open - click the top button: "Do a system scan and save a logfile". Shortly after Notepad will open a log that you need to save as we will need it later.

Using the different programs 3 log files are produced - one from Malwarebytes, one from ComboFix and one from HijackThis. Goto the following forumhttp://www.bullguard.com/forum/10/(Bullguard forum) register there, create a topic/thread, describe your problem (try to give as much details as possible) and copy the contents of these 3 logs into your topic/thread there. Experts there will analyse your problem and as per the log produced, will confirm whether the problem has actually been fix. If they feel that problem persists then they will assist further.

I have mentioned about this forum because I found it good but if someone knows about any other such forum where such service is provided then one can go ahead with that. Choice of this forum depends completely on an individual. Furthermore, if someone feels confident that the problem is solved and does not need any advice from any such forum then this step can be avoided but I would recommend going ahead with this step too.

I hope this will help some of the readers around. Some of the readers may feel this kind of article should have been posted in some tech forums but tech forum will have mostly technical people accessing it while here, the article will be read by a wider section of people.