Six free tools for removing malicious software March 1, 2011 By Jack Wallen
Malicious software (be it viruses, rootkits, Trojans, worms, or malware) is so prevalent, it seems one of the primary jobs for IT is to protect, clean, and remove it. Yet no matter how hard you try, or how much you pay for the software you use to protect your desktops, it always seems like a losing battle. Fighting a losing battle really hurts when you're spending a good deal of your IT budget (if you even have an IT budget) on software to protect machines from attacks. It doesn’t have to be that way. I have found plenty of tools that can help in the quest to have a virus/malware-free environment. These tools can either be installed on your machines or used as a toolkit to carry with you to fight the good fight. You won’t find enterprise-grade tools here. What you will find are tools that have done the best job at keeping my systems clean.
1: Combofix Combofix is my first line of defense when I suspect something has taken over a machine. But you shouldn’t just run this powerful tool without a few considerations. First, what will Combofix fix? After a successful run of Combofix, you should have cleaned (if applicable): malware, rootkits, Trojans, worms, and viruses. What you need to know about Combofix prior to running is quite important. The single most important issue with Combofix is that you can't run it with an antivirus tool enabled. With some antivirus solutions, you can simply disable the tool (Symantec Endpoint Protection is a perfect example.) I have found that one particular antivirus solution, AVG, requires complete removal before running Combofix. And to be on the safe side, I prefer to run Combofix with the computer in safe mode. One other note: Never download Combofix from any other site than Bleeping Computer or ForoSpyware.
2: CCleaner Another free tool, CCleaner, does two things incredibly well: It cleans the Windows registry and removes cached Web data. There are a lot of registry cleaners available, but CCleaner is the one I always trust. As with any tool, you want to make sure you understand it before using it. Cleaning cached browser data is fairly harmless, but cleaning the registry is not. I highly recommend always backing up the registry when using Ccleaner to clean the registry. Fortunately CCleaner has a built-in tool for handling the backup.
3: Microsoft Security Essentials After using many antivirus tools, the one that seems to work nearly as well as any other --without any attached cost -- is Microsoft Security Essentials. Not only will this antivirus tool help prevent infection, it does so with as little drain on the system as most other antivirus tools.
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