So I'm working on a client's machine who picked up a virus in all likelihood from a popup. This thing is NASTY! It's a VERY advanced variation of several older viruses (the whole XP Security 2012) nonsense. This virus has installed Multiple Rootkits, Multiple Trojans and it took his system over COMPLETELY. I managed to remove the most severe of the Rootkits using a specialized tool my friend Dave introduced me to, but it only could do so much. I'm currently running a live scanner to remove more.
Just FYI to all you non-geeks:
Rootkits take effect at boot time and can do pretty much anything they want. They can steal your personal data, modify other programs, and do all kinds of fun things.
Trojans are usually used to deploy other viruses.
Suggestions:
Get a Decent Adblock program.
Get a decent AV program - he had Avast, which performs fairly well, but no AV program is fool proof.
MOST IMPORTANT: perform REGULAR BACKUPS of your information, and if possible, use imaging software such as Norton Ghost or Acronis to make an image of your system so you/your computer guy can get you back up and running quickly.
External hard drives are cheap, around $100 or so depending on your needs (they can be as cheap as $50 if you have only a small amount of data). It's much cheaper than all the time/problems you get to deal with when you have a problem like a virus/failing HDD, etc.
Anyway,
Watch out kids, the internet's not always friendly.
If you're willing, you also might want to try Ubuntu or another Linux variant - you can do pretty much all the things you can on Windows, it's free, the software you install is free and you're much better protected against crap like this.
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