B
beyeriii
Hello Group,
I recently started a technical support position and I sometimes need to
scan customer's computers for viruses and spyware.
I normally rely upon the online utilities from Spy Sweeper, and McAfee
or Symantec. But during a recent incident, I believe the online tool
was being spoofed by a virus or spyware program. I am not certain of
which computer germ it was because the machine had over a dozen, I
believe Adware.EliteBar may have been involved.
So I am now trying to determine a better strategy for battling these
computer germs on customers machines. I think the best strategy is to
boot from a CD to scan/clean the hard drive. This prevents the scanner
from being spoofed (unless the boot sequence in the BIOS is a
spoof...), and also avoids having to install software on customers
computers.
Unfortunately, after calling McAfee and Symantec, I was told that these
products are not capable of creating a Bootable CD. This is rather
disappointing but understandable, creating a bootable CD to scan a
computer requires something like Linux or perhaps Windows XP Embedded.
But these are large software companies, and bootable CDs are now
becoming more prevalent, e.g. Acronis True Image Server. (Evidently
KeyRoute Remover does create a bootable CD to do its work.)
On a side note, I am disappointed that the computer industry has
decided to differentiate between Computer Viruses and Spyware. They
both are programs that the typical user does not want running on their
computer and they both require similar techniques for removal. I hope
the industry will soon combine these terms into something like
"Computer Germ".
Please let me know if Symantec of McAfee can create a bootable CD,
and thank you for reading this posting.
Keller Beyer
I recently started a technical support position and I sometimes need to
scan customer's computers for viruses and spyware.
I normally rely upon the online utilities from Spy Sweeper, and McAfee
or Symantec. But during a recent incident, I believe the online tool
was being spoofed by a virus or spyware program. I am not certain of
which computer germ it was because the machine had over a dozen, I
believe Adware.EliteBar may have been involved.
So I am now trying to determine a better strategy for battling these
computer germs on customers machines. I think the best strategy is to
boot from a CD to scan/clean the hard drive. This prevents the scanner
from being spoofed (unless the boot sequence in the BIOS is a
spoof...), and also avoids having to install software on customers
computers.
Unfortunately, after calling McAfee and Symantec, I was told that these
products are not capable of creating a Bootable CD. This is rather
disappointing but understandable, creating a bootable CD to scan a
computer requires something like Linux or perhaps Windows XP Embedded.
But these are large software companies, and bootable CDs are now
becoming more prevalent, e.g. Acronis True Image Server. (Evidently
KeyRoute Remover does create a bootable CD to do its work.)
On a side note, I am disappointed that the computer industry has
decided to differentiate between Computer Viruses and Spyware. They
both are programs that the typical user does not want running on their
computer and they both require similar techniques for removal. I hope
the industry will soon combine these terms into something like
"Computer Germ".
Please let me know if Symantec of McAfee can create a bootable CD,
and thank you for reading this posting.
Keller Beyer
