Joined on 01-07-2005
TechSoup Member
I tried to downlaod a no-cd crack for the game madden nfl 2003 through kazaa. The file ended up being a worm and i have no idea how to get rid of it as all of the files it released come back after i delete them. Please Help!!!!!
Are you running any sort of antivirus software?
I'm sure there's also some kind of moral in here somewhere, but I'll let you figure that one out. :cwm11;
Well, assuming you're on the computer that's infected, hit
this URL with Internet Explorer. Specificy which drive you'd like to scan and clean.
Joined on 01-07-2005
TechSoup Member
Yes i get the moral thank you. I have tried this housecall and it does not work - it does not detect the worm and neither does my norton anti virus
Joined on 02-18-2004
New Hampshire
All morals aside, here is the steps you should take. First, find out which worm you have by name, and go to www.symantec.com. Look to see if they have a virus extraction tool for what you have. If not, they will have instructions for manually removing this worm. Usually involves turning off system restore, then running Norton anti-virus with the latest virus definitions. Sounds like this worm got into your registry and that is why it keeps coming back. Good luck, and be careful what you get on filesharing networks, sometimes a free ride isn't quite free.
When all else fails, reboot to safe mode and then run the virus scan. I've found that Norton and McAfee do not detect lots of worms, trojans, etc..
I don't know about TrendMicro's Housecall but I do recommend AVG Antivirus Free version since it is the only antivirus I've found that detects and removes trojans, worms, etc., that none of the other antivirus program will detect or remove.
Joined on 02-18-2004
New Hampshire
I haven't run into any problems with Norton not detecting trojans or worms, if I download something and it ends up being malicious, Norton alerts my right away. If you go the route of adding a different anti-virus program, remember to remove Norton first, or you will have some serious issues. Stay away from Panda AV, it protects you at the Winsock level and if you decide to uninstall, you lose the ability to connect to the internet.
Joined on 01-07-2005
TechSoup Member
Okay, so how do i find out what type of worm i have
If it's not detected by anything so far, how do you know that you have a worm?
If it is a trojan, you might check out The Cleaner: http://www.moosoft.com/ -- it is similar to an AV program, but scans exclusively for trojan horse programs instead of viruses. If there is a trojan there, it will find it.
Joined on 01-07-2005
TechSoup Member
OK, so i tried all these things and nothing worked. And no, i do not know for sure if it is a worm. But, what happened was that it released 100's of .exe programs of different games and programs, none of which are openable. So, what is this?
This worm is called the W32.Spex.Worm - a fix can be found [
Here ] although sometimes a full system reload is required to completely get rid of it (someone mention a lesson in this? - P2P is bad... downloading illegal cracks is just plain, well, illegal)
Rgds, Don
P2P is bad...
No, not at all. P2P is a tool that allows people to share files of interest to them in a decentralized manner. There is a good bit of legitimate content on most major p2p networks. Of course, you have to be careful about what you download -- but that pretty much goes without saying about anything nowadays.
Don't blame the tool for the people who use it to share materials illegally. For that matter, FTP, IRC, instant messengers, and even websites could be said to be just as bad.
Hi Will,
In the context of technoogy I agree with you - P2P can be loosely compared to FTP, IRC etc.
In the context of accepted usage I tend to disagree - If there is legitimate content on most P2P networks it is nicely hidden amongst a mountain of pirated music files and virus-laden hackware.
In the context of security as highlighted by the question that started this thread, I strongly disagree - Anyone perusing P2P networks without a strong sense and understanding of the security implications is asking for trouble - demonstrated time and again by questions asked on these forums.
Rgds, Don
Joined on 01-07-2005
TechSoup Member
yeah. the registry key, IELoader32, that is supposedly the virus/womr thing, is not found in the registry. what now?
Joined on 04-03-2005
TechSoup Member
Also iexplore32.exe is the worm.
The real IE is: iexplore.exe. :)