[Starman01]

Hi all,

once again Starman needs a bit of technical help First, if you reading this Fury, thanks for your recommandation with the wireless Headset. I bought myself the Logitech you did recommend, and it's working really good

Now, what I need today is, like the topic says, a freeware PC Image maker. Once again I catched myself a nasty Virus via drive-by-download. It's really ridiculous, I'm laughing about all the hundreds of obvious email viruses that land in my email accounts, but it's now the third time I catched me something like this. (my own fault, don't ask which sites I'm surfing on  ) 

This one was made quite well, it completly blocked my windows access. Just a warning image after booting windows saying my PC has been blocked due to terrorism and child porn emails (yeah, right. Don't forgot my cannibalism  ) and the blockage will be removed when I send 100,- € over a russian internet payment service, signed "German BKA" (Like they would use such a way and an internet pay service, escpecially a russion one. I can't believe people fell for these things ..... )

Well, I managed to locate the files and remove them manually and fix the autostart. Still, I don't trust my PC anymore (even some folder access rights for "Documents and settings" and other windows folder where complely taken off from my user rights, and I had quite to fight to give myself the user rights back.

Now, atm I'm a bit lazy to reinstall windows again, but I do have no option. But it pisses me off...... 

Can anyone recommend me a software like mentioned ? So that I can reinstall my system partition, and once I say it's a "clean" install, I want to make an image of that, which I then can restore everytime I feel the need. I would rather use this, before relying on Windows Restoring points. Also, I'm not even sure a restoration point would remove all viruses If I catch another one.

Any ideas ?

Cheers
Michael

[TwentyPercentCooler]

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

Just used it myself, pretty good bit of software.

[Starman01]

Thank you, I give this one a try

[rev_posix]

Another one to look at: http://clonezilla.org/

[FreeSpaceFreak]

My parents got a virus once, which would prevent Windows from booting. I gave them my Ubuntu liveCD, which booted correctly. They googled the symptoms; it turned out to be caused by a rogue file in the Windows directories. Remove file, and Windows worked again.

So yeah, for cases like these, I'd recommend keeping an Linux livecd handy. (Any flavour, though I'd recommend Ubuntu for beginners.)  Only a really well-made virus will prevent that from booting. You'll be able to access your hard drive, back up everything you want to external media, run virusscans, google the problem, anything you want.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

My parents got a virus once, which would prevent Windows from booting. I gave them my Ubuntu liveCD, which booted correctly. They googled the symptoms; it turned out to be caused by a rogue file in the Windows directories. Remove file, and Windows worked again.

So yeah, for cases like these, I'd recommend keeping an Linux livecd handy. (Any flavour, though I'd recommend Ubuntu for beginners.)  Only a really well-made virus will prevent that from booting. You'll be able to access your hard drive, back up everything you want to external media, run virusscans, google the problem, anything you want.

This isn't a bad idea, either. I have a bootable thumb drive with Ubuntu laying around just for these sorts of emergencies - plus, the advantage of using a thumb drive is that you can actually use it exactly like an OS from an HDD, a.k.a. install programs, save files, etc. Very handy, if your BIOS doesn't balk at booting from USB (some older ones don't play nice).

Anyway Starman, good luck getting everything back to normal.

[Mongoose]

I think my dad's account on the family PC was hit by that same Trojan, only it had a fake FBI warning instead.  Nice to know that it's internationally diversified.

[Starman01]

Yep, they certainly don't lack creativity these days Thanks for the other tipps guys, I will try one of these. But I will certainly not start using Linux. I think it's just not worth the time for me to do this just because I catch myself one of these damn drive-by-download monsters every 18 months Maybe I should rather stop surfing in the darker areas of the internet 

[Klaustrophobia]

if you're not using an antivirus that has a "safe surf" type of protection, get one that does.  AVG for example.  it's not ironclad, but it helps a lot.

[Nemesis6]

MalwareBytes is pretty effective, and famous within security circles unless I'm horribly behind on that subject. Anyway, it finds rootkits as well as spyware and trojans.

[Klaustrophobia]

it's a good cleaning tool, but the free version is scan only.  and because it's good and popular, many viruses attempt to disable it.

[jr2]

The paid version is pretty good, yeah.  The free version is good for cleaning up in combination with another tool, such as AVG or MS Security Essentials

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I will certainly not start using Linux. I think it's just not worth the time for me to do this just because I catch myself one of these damn drive-by-download monsters every 18 months

Note, I'm not saying you should perma-switch to Linux, just that a simple liveCD or liveUSB will enable you to back up your stuff and fix your pc whenever you're locked out of Windows.

That said, Linux is probably your safest bet for browsing shady websites If you wanna stick to Windows, Firefox with NoScript comes pretty close, but it's not as user-friendly as Linux: many websites really require scripts to run, so then you'll have to manually decide which scripts to trust and which not, which leaves room for error.

[jr2]

MiniXP live CD says hi.

(included in Hiren's Ultimate Boot CD and FalconFour's UBCD, along with Linux liveCDs and a slew of diagnostic tools & AV/AS softs.  Since those CDs are free, I'll go ahead and say you can just get them on The Pirate Bay.  Search & sort by Seeders / then sort that descenting)

[TwentyPercentCooler]

I will certainly not start using Linux. I think it's just not worth the time for me to do this just because I catch myself one of these damn drive-by-download monsters every 18 months

Note, I'm not saying you should perma-switch to Linux, just that a simple liveCD or liveUSB will enable you to back up your stuff and fix your pc whenever you're locked out of Windows.

That said, Linux is probably your safest bet for browsing shady websites If you wanna stick to Windows, Firefox with NoScript comes pretty close, but it's not as user-friendly as Linux: many websites really require scripts to run, so then you'll have to manually decide which scripts to trust and which not, which leaves room for error.

Yeah, switching completely to Linux would be an inconvenience for most people. But it's a great secondary OS. The only things that are allowed to touch the internet on my main gaming PC are Steam and Windows Update. Everything else...denied! I use Ubuntu or Mint to do general surfing and browsing. I've had something like 17 years of uptime without any damaging infections, so I suppose it's one situation where excessive paranoia pays off.

When I've had a Windows box that connects to the internet, Avast and Malwarebytes combined with Firefox, AdBlock+, and Do Not Track+ haven't failed me so far. I used to use NoScript as well, but as FSF mentioned a couple of posts back, it's incredibly annoying to have to figure out which scripts are keeping a page from displaying. More hassle than it's worth.

Be like the president of Madagascar in the Pandemic games and your computer will have a much better chance of making it through the gauntlet each day unscathed.

[Starman01]

if you're not using an antivirus that has a "safe surf" type of protection, get one that does.  AVG for example.  it's not ironclad, but it helps a lot.

Well, I DO use Avira, but only the "free" version, it's always running and it's updating daily, still it didn't protect me in this case. I thought Drive-By-Downloads go mostly through anyway. I also had Lavasoft running for a time, not sure why I removed it, something wasn't working as it should.... don't know anymore

What's that about Firefox with "noscript" ? Since I use firefox, a better configuration will help. But wont it disallow a lot of safe sites too ?

[Klaustrophobia]

lavasoft turned to junk ages ago.  i don't know the antivirus you mentioned, but what i was talking about with AVG is that there is a dedicated service/component/whatever on top of the normal antivirus that actively searches web pages as you browse and blocks you going to dangerous sites.  that might only work with IE though.

yes, noscript will block on safe sites, and thats why several people said it's a pain and they don't use it.  adblock doesn't do a half bad job at blocking bad things though, especially if you have it set to block redirects. 

[TwentyPercentCooler]

if you're not using an antivirus that has a "safe surf" type of protection, get one that does.  AVG for example.  it's not ironclad, but it helps a lot.

Well, I DO use Avira, but only the "free" version, it's always running and it's updating daily, still it didn't protect me in this case. I thought Drive-By-Downloads go mostly through anyway. I also had Lavasoft running for a time, not sure why I removed it, something wasn't working as it should.... don't know anymore

What's that about Firefox with "noscript" ? Since I use firefox, a better configuration will help. But wont it disallow a lot of safe sites too ?

I personally would recommend Avast! or AVG over Avira. As for NoScript, it's very good for the super-paranoid but you will have to manually allow specific scripts for some sites to work, and it's not always obvious which one out of the 20 scripts trying to run on a page (die in a fire, "web 2.0") is the one you need to enable to get the video you're trying to watch to play.

If you're interested in giving it a try: http://noscript.net/