How to Foil the Trojan.VUNDO
A few days ago my PC suffered an attack that threatended to escalate. My PC became compromised just before Christmas. I wondered whether my passwords and credit card details would be stolen. Fortunately I found a fix for the problem.
The main symptom of the attack was the inability to use Windows Updates. Also the main antivirus software that I use (Norton antivirus) appeared to know that the trojan.VUNDO was present. It reported a fix, but almost immediately this was overturned and the problem reverted.
The implication of this is the computer is cut off from security updates from the operating system supplier (Microsoft) and hence becomes more vulnerable to further more serious attacks. Potentially if a predator, who for instance wants to compromise your bank details or passwords, whatever, knows that if he has cut you off from reinforcements from the operating system provider or your antivirus software provider, he knows that you are defenceless and wounded and sooner or later he can find a way through. You could be farmed.
If security updates are disabled, it is like a bank that has its alarm system cut off. You ignore it at your peril, even if the computer is nomal in every other way.
In this case not only was the automatic updates of Windows knocked out. Also the ability to access Windows security downloads manually was disabled. This severely handicaps your ability to fix the problem. You are effectively cut off from base. Your operating system provider cannot help you.
An independent way to fix the problem was required. I went to the Windows forums and discussion groups and used their search facilities to find a solution. I quickly found a report that was relevent. There was a software package recommended that could fix this problem. This was Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware 1.31 and it can be found at http://www.malwarebytes.org/. It fixed the problem beautifully and I strongly recomend it.
Besides the free downloads there are purchaseable versions as well. New versions are brought out every few days, so they obviously are continually developing new versions to deal with the latest threats.
Criminals are continually developing malware, including viruses, trojans and worms with the object of stealing money from members of the Internet community. Fortunately there are companies like Malewarebytes out there fighting them. They certainly fixed trojan.VUNDO for me.