[plug] Anti Virus LiveCD

[Craig Ringer]

On Wed, 2005-06-22 at 10:50 +0800, Chris Caston wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-06-22 at 10:18, Onno Benschop wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Going on-site each day and needing to install AVG, AdAware and SpyBot, 
> > then update them, then running a full scan for each application takes 
> > the better part of two hours for most machines, longer if their machine 
> > is completely toast.
> > 
> 
> You can use BartPE, run the mcafee command line scanner and run adaware
> but it only removes the files and not the registry entries.
> 
> The problem I find with cleaning up infected machines is trying to work
> out if will in fact fix all the problems or if in fact its best to do a
> clean reinstall.

Even if cleaning it breaks the machine totally (not unheard of), it
means that any clean reinstall lets you archive the old data without
fear of reinfection.

Any SENSIBLE business will have all their data on the file server
anyway, but most sensible businesses won't have machines so riddled with
viruses that they have to call in the big guns to clean up.

>  Viruses are tiny malicious programs written by unemployed software
> developers because companies like Microsoft take the market hostage and
> make it difficult for people to see how using their talent for
> creativity instead of destruction can have positive rewards.  

While imaginitive, I'm inclined to doubt the factual basis for that.
Where's your evidence?

What I'm seeing currently, and what the AV companies and security
"experts" seem to think, is that increasing amounts of virus/malware
activity is driven by strong commerical interests in the grey areas of
legalilty (spyware/adware) and outright illegal (phishing/spam
zombies/DDoS zombies). There's a thriving *market* in zombie computers,
for example.

--
Craig Ringer