Macro Virus

[Terribose]

We have a lengthy document written in wordstar 2000 which has been infected by the NYB virus. From what I understand, this is embedded right in the document within the macro file. What is the best way of cleaning it up? We keep getting reinfected after clean up.

[Forum Admin]

Hi Terri,

A quick look at Symantec's site says that this is a boot sector virus rather than one that infects other files.

If you're not using a disk compression program (Doublespace or similar) you should be able to fix it quickly by rewriting the boot record from an uninfected disk.

Have a look at the following details:
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2000-121513-2227-99&tabid=3

Regards
Mike

[Mike_Newcomb]

You have not stated if you are using a Windows operating system. But I hope the following helps.

When I moved from W98 to W2000 it was like the floodgates had opened to attack. This was not something I had experienced before. I tried the freebies (e.g. spybot etc.) but none provided enough protection.

There are two market leaders for protection, Norton and Macafee. Norton Internet Security(NIS) 2005 was installed and subsequently 2006. This has given me peace of mind since. This does not mean Macafee is no good, just that I have not tried it. 

Note: NIS 2007 does not support W2000, and if this is your o/s Symantec recommend continuing with NIS 2006.

I manually (as opposed to automatically) run a full system scan about every week. As this takes a couple of hours, I start of at night and leave to finish. To save runtime, before scanning, I delete Internet temp files and empty recycle bin. If any problem is found NIS fixes it, or asks what you would like to do.

NIS can be a bit heavy on resources, but generally this is not noticed except when starting up the PC.

The price includes a years updates and support, then one purchases another year.

However the most economic way to obtain is EBay. Recently I bought a complete sealed NIS 2006 (my second 2006) for ?8 (am in the UK) including postage.

It is far cheaper this way as opposed to extending ones existing NIS. Also freebies are often included in the pack.

One of the freebies included in the latest pack was Norton Ghost version 10. Essentially this provides a security copy of ones hdd. This I use weekly, to copy drive C: to drive D:. I had previously been using Ghost version 9, which was a freebie in an earlier NIS. Ghost takes a bit of getting used to though.

My D: hdd's purpose is really only for backup of C:

Good Luck - Mike