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/).
I received a file on windows live messenger from 1 of my contacts. It was a picture file and i accepted it.My friend later told me that it is a virus and he didnt send it himself. Now this is being sent to my other contacts!
Could you please let me know how i can remove this.
Cheers
How can
Answer I'm assuming you are running an antivirus program and somehow it failed to protect your computer. If this is the case, here's a solution that won't cost you anything.
1) Download 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 will fight each other and might crash your computer. It isn't good enough to just turn off your old antivirus because it may have been crippled by your virus infection.
4) Install F-Secure.
5) Run a complete scan of your computer. Follow any instructions F-Secure might give you. If it detects and removes your messenger virus, then your problem is solved.
6) Reboot. If this works, you can either keep F-Secure or uninstall it and reinstall your old antivirus.
7) After this, if you decide you would rather keep your old antivirus, you can reinstall it and get all the latest updates right away. Usually antivirus companies are pretty good about updating their programs whenever some new virus figures out how to evade or cripple their product.
If this doesn't work, please let me know and I will give you a more painful way to remove this virus.
