AboutCarolyn Meinel Expertise I cover Windows, Unix, TCP/IP and Ethernet security questions. I do not cover Mac, Palm Pilot, or other networking issues.
Experience Books by Carolyn Meinel: wrote a chapter for The Hacking of America book (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567204600/happyhacker)
My article Code Red for the Web for Scientific American was reprinted in the book Best American Science Writing 2002 (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060936509/happyhacker). My book The Happy Hacker: A Guide to Mostly Harmless Hacking is now in 4th edition with a Japanese edition (see http://happyhacker.org/hhbook/).
Question I just walked a ways from my lab top and found. I start hearing alot of pop ups. When i got to my computer i see this total sercurity pop up. I had that this before and i some how got rid of it. This time it is alot different. This time I can't access safe mode,I get the blue screen of death. When I get into windows it will load up but it will not let me access anything that will destroy it. I go into taskmanger and start closing down things. When i get down to a file close it come up with you have 60 seconds to save everything. It will cut off. Please help me get my computer up and running thank you.
Answer This is -- as I'm sure you are aware -- a serious problem. First I'll give you a way that will probably work, and then a way that will work for sure.
Here's what will almost certainly work.
1) Download either Kapersky Internet Security, which offers a free 30 day trial at http://kapersky.com, or F-Secure's Complete Internet security suite, which offers a free thirty day trial: https://store.f-secure.com/cgi-bin/dlreg/ml=EN?ID=FSISTB&desid=TRIAL
2) Disconnect from the Internet.
3) Uninstall your current antivirus. This is absolutely essential because otherwise it and F-Secure or Kapersky will fight each other and might crash your computer. It isn't good enough to just turn off your old antivirus because it probably has been crippled by your virus infection.
4) Install your Internet Security product. Download any updates available.
5) Run a complete scan of your computer. Follow any instructions it might give you.
6) Reboot.
If this works, you can either keep your new Internet Security product or uninstall it and reinstall your old antivirus from either a download of the latest version from their website (if that's how they sell it) or from the disk it was on when you bought it. Be sure to get all the latest updates right away. Usually antivirus companies are pretty good about updating their programs whenever some new attack becomes able to evade or cripple their product.
If you weren't running an antivirus program that includes antispyware protection and a firewall, then I recommend that you not reinstall your old program. Nowadays we need total protection, and this includes antispyware and a firewall.
7) To prevent future infections, don't use Internet Explorer, as it is susceptible to introducing viruses, adware and spyware into your computer. Instead you could use Firefox, free from Mozilla.org . Instead of using Outlook for email, you could use Thunderbird, free from Mozilla.org, or Eudora, free from Eudora.com .
If it was my computer, I would not take the easy way because who knows what nasty stuff some criminal has hidden among all the weird stuff going on with your computer. In fact, I've done the following several times with my computers, and it really, really, without a doubt will work.
I remove the hard drive and attach it it to another computer and first of all remove all the data to backup, being careful to have my computer security suite scan everything as I back it up. Then I would "nuke" the hard drive -- do a low level format (not the usual Windows reformat) using a tool for that purpose by the manufacturer of the hard drive. All manufacturers that I know of provide this software for free, which differs according to the manufacturer. Then I would reinstall the hard drive in the original computer and reload the operating system, load a computer security suite that includes a firewall (one better than the Windows firewall), activate the firewall, then get online and upload all Windows security updates. Only then would I reload all my applications, and then reload all my data.
