Root Kit infection

[Rolex]

About 2 weeks ago I downloaded and installed Acronis back up. I was using a 160 GB external HD, and I kept getting the message that the back up had failed due to being out of disk space. However, 10 minutes later I'd get a pop up saying the back up was successful. My entire system, as well as all my files were on it, but I got fed up with seeing the message, so I bought a 2 Terra byte external drive. That's 2,000 GB.
I still got the same message, but what REALLY started to annoy me was how slow my computer was running. Routinely it was eating up 20% of 4Gb mem. It took a long time to open and close programs and often the screen would go translucent white for a minute or more till it unfroze. The activity light was a constant on. I started doing some looking around, and decided to remove Acronis and try a fresh install, even though the major memory hog was from a Uniblue program.
Well, during the uninstall, Avast popped up with a notice that it had found a Rootkit. I had no idea what that was, so I did some research on it. That's one nasty ass virus that masks itself as a Windows program, often in the system files. I would NEVER have found it if I didn't do the uninstall of the program, and none of my protection programs found it.
It's now out, Acronis is reinstalled, and my computer is running fine again.
I still have no idea how or when it got in. I thought I had an almost foolproof system.

 

[nedlynitro]

I have some advise! If you go to youtube and search up things you can do with Command Prompt, you will be looking for video's that show you how to detect viruses and spyware through that program on your computer, as well as ip address in and out when ever your computer is connecting with another computer. Maybe is something you are interested in, you can do a lot more with other programs when it comes to monitoring your internet connection, "CMD" (Command Prompt) is very use full when it comes to manually locating and removing viruses, and it is very easy....

 

[Rolex]

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it.

 

[HPIguy]

Hey Rolex, check out Malwarebytes at www.malwarebytes.org and also combo fix here

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix

Both great programs, I use them frequently. Nothing against command line based operations (I use it a lot for work) but if you don't know what you're doing, it's a lot easier to create more problems than you solve.

 

[Rolex]

I have Malware bytes and ran it after removing the rootkit. I've also run all the rest of my spyware and virus programs.
Until today, I'd never even heard of a root kit.
Sounds like something a dentist would use.

 

[hamz9561]

A while back Sony had a root kit on a few of their more popular movie DVDs that installed whenever you tried to watch them on a computer. Sony got sued and ended up having to replace the DVDs and pay for repairs to the affected computers.