Vista Problems and malware-catching

[J.Jack.J.]

I have posted to this group with a couple of threads expressing the
various ways in which my computer has been performing poorly,
sometimes failing in unexpected ways. I ran a lot of scans -- with
Malwarebytes, Spybot, Microsoft Security Essentials, Ad-Aware,
Superantivirus and AVG. These all drew a blank, even the full scans.
The only 'pay' version of any anti-malware programme I had installed
was Stopzilla. It ran periodic, automatic scans, but didn't display
the results and I always assumed that it would show any threats it
found. I was rather annoyed by these scans because they slowed the
system down and I had no evidence that Stopzilla was as powerful a
means of detection as any of the other apps; and I was even more
annoyed that Stopzilla had renewed my contract at the end of last
month without my authorisation, drawing a fee from my account.

Yesterday I emailed Stopzilla and asked them to terminate my contract
and issue me with a refund. This they have done. But before they had
got round to replying to the email, I ran a manual scan with
Stopzilla. It found about a dozen Trojans on my system. Now that I
have removed them, my system appears (though I don;t want to speak too
soon) to be running as it should.

What do you make of this? If I had had the 'pay' version of, say,
Malwarebytes, would it have found the Trojans? Are free versions worth
having?

With thanks in advance.

 

[Mr. Arnold]

What do you make of this? If I had had the 'pay' version of, say,
Malwarebytes, would it have found the Trojans? Are free versions worth
having?

None of the stuff is bullet proof. So, you use other tools and go look
for yourself from time to time, and not depend upon detection software
to tell you what is happening on the machine. You can use CurrPorts
instead of Active Ports, and all the software talked about in the link
are free.

<http://www.windowsecurity.com/artic...d_Rootkit_Tools_in_a_Windows_Environment.html>

 

[J.Jack.J.]

None of the stuff is bullet proof. So, you use other tools and go look
for yourself from time to time, and not depend upon detection software
to tell you what is happening on the machine. You can use CurrPorts
instead of Active Ports, and all the software talked about in the link
are free.

<http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Hidden_Backdoors_Trojan_Horses...>

I read the article and it seems well-written but I don't know how to
go about, for example, finding tskmgr.exe to change the name to
_root_tksmgr.exe (_root_tskmgr.exe ?) -- nor just about anything
else.

What are the chances that I have a rootkit?

Do you think I would be well-advised to get another year's (or more)
licence of Stopzilla?

Incidentally, can a backdoor application enable a hacker to read
anything on my computer?

With thanks.