Success in digging malware from my own back yard

By Ryan Russell It took more than one security tool for me to rid a Vista installation of a nasty virus infection. And once the malware was jettisoned, another several hours were required to ensure that Vista was up-to-date.

A short while ago, a family friend brought by a laptop and claimed it was infected with “viruses.” It was a Dell machine running an OEM version of Vista Home Premium.

Without bothering to see what the actual symptoms were, I downloaded a copy of SUPERAntiSpyware onto a USB drive and got to work. The program wasn’t able to update itself once I had installed it on the laptop, so I downloaded the utility’s signature updates manually.

The inability of security programs to update is not uncommon on infected machines. Often, the malware will hijack Internet connections, which prevents access to tools and updates.

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