by David Tors

Created on: May 31, 2010

My daughter called me on the phone to tell me her laptop got a virus after she let her friends use it. “Great!” I’m thinking, remembering the last time this happened. Memories of spending hours researching anti-virus freeware and websites haunted me.

I vowed never to pay again for fancy anti-virus software after a Symantec rep in India told me that even though I paid for their software, it would cost me another $100 to have them remove the about-blank virus. I consulted with my brother in law who is an IT pro for a big corporation and he recommended the awesome websites, e.g. Majorgeeks.com and others that would prove invaluable in my battle. I was able to kill the about-blank virus after nuking it with 4 or 5 different programs.

This time, the virus my daughter got infected with was the Antispyware soft virus. It totally took over her laptop with pop-ups and blocked her internet connection.  Google pointed me in the right direction and I found the article to fix the problem. I rebooted in safe mode with networking and loaded Malewarebytes. It did the trick and after several scans I was confident her laptop was fixed. I was wrong.

A few days later, my daughter called me to tell me her ISP (Internet Service Provider) notified her that she had a botnet on her computer. “What the hell is a botnet?” I’m thinking. They told her this botnet is responsible for hundreds of spam emails being sent out from her laptop through her wireless modem.

The about-blank virus didn’t seem so bad anymore after I heard what these little botnets can do. Identity theft for one thing!  I called my IT brother in law again and asked his advice. He concurred with the ISP that the safest route would be to reformat her system. What! I’m not liking this. I couldn’t find the recovery disk for her Vista system which I would need, so I held off reformatting as a last resort.

 Once again I googled this botnet thing and installed 4 or 5 recommended programs that would search and destroy the botnet. The great thing about Google is, if there is a fix for something, it will be on there. Spybot and House call were two of the programs I used to go in after the botnet. I then scanned the laptop 3 or 4 times with all the programs and tightened her privacy levels for cookies.

I was satisfied with my efforts that one of these programs found and killed the botnet. My brother in law did not share my optimism. He expressed concern that the botnet is not easily found and the only safe way is to reformat the operating system. He told me if I couldn’t find the recovery disk, there were ways around it and to contact Dell.

So now I wait. Will my daughters ISP call back to tell her there’s more spamming going on from her laptop or will my efforts have been successful? Either way, I’m hoping this is the last time I ever have to deal with a botnet.

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