Sorry, stupid ?, but I'm trying..

[Lady Taint]

..to learn as much as I can. My problem started when I opened an email from a friend. As soon as I did Norton popped up with an email error and proceeded to do a scan. Resulting in a backdoor.imiserv virus which it said it could not remove nor quarantined and that I was still infected.

So I ran the Cleaner, Spybot and Norton again. Norton again said I was infected while the other two detected nothing. Upon recommendation from the PC company where I purchased my PC they suggested using the system recovery disc and reformatting. Ok did that and the whole system seemed to collapse saying a write operation was attempted, insufficient system resources and bios uninstalled...well that made me think of a boot virus. Now my pc when turned on can't even make it to the desktop.

In light of all this is it safe to assume that the email I opened proceeded to infect my machine?

If I'm running the Cleaner, Norton, Adaware, WinPatrol and Spybot am I not doing the best that I can to protect my machine?

Thanks very much for any enlightenment for this poor ignorant female who wishes to be a geek.

[bascule]

Typing "backdoor.imiserv" into Google turns up this web page from Symantec which contains complete and detailed removal instructions:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...r.imiserv.html

In other matters, who are you and what is your connection to Defcon?

[Lady Taint]

Thanks very much for the response, but I tried that and in safe mode with no luck.

I'm sorry I have no connection to Defcon, am I in error that this is a forum for any to use? My apologies if I have registered and entered incorrectly.

[skroo]

I'm sorry I have no connection to Defcon, am I in error that this is a forum for any to use? My apologies if I have registered and entered incorrectly.

Just out of curiosity, how did you find this forum?

[Lady Taint]

Well to answer your question..about a year ago I used to work with a fellow who was very good, ah how shall I say, with PC's and their intricacies. He mentioned to me about Defcon and black books, so interested in arming myself and acquiring knowledge I came here after having a fanny load of troubles of my own. :)

Uh, it's ok isn't it?

[ttickzz]

Have you tried to use an install CD for the OS instead of the recovery disc ?
Try this and see if the CD are able to boot at all, and reformat and install from this if possible.
If you don't feel secure enough to work in bios, try to get someone that are familiar with it.
If the Bios are not able to read the HDD at all, I am afraid you maybe need to change it.
How old are your Harddrive ?

[Lady Taint]

When I hit the delete, F1 or F8 it refuses to acknowledge or react. Its like it gets caught in a loop and goes from start up screen to loading my settings then shuts down and starts all over again.

And it continues to do this over and over, also my hard drive is six months old. But again, if you get only one email on a Sunday and open it, then Norton says Email Error and that the machine is now infected...did the act of opening this email give my machine this virus?

Thanks

[ttickzz]

But again, if you get only one email on a Sunday and open it, then Norton says Email Error and that the machine is now infected...did the act of opening this email give my machine this virus?

Everything is of course possible, but nothig can be said for sure. This virus can also infect you, for example, from a visited URL, and I would not have trusted in every thing Norton told if I were you . (I don't like the prog. myself)
Anyway, it is strange that this virus should have caused you so much harm.

[mindstorm]

it is strange that this virus should have caused you so much harm.

I have seen NAV cause a lot more harm then good when it comes to sanitizing (or the attempt) the system, i work for a high school district and have twice seen NAV hose the MBR of Win2k systems. From then on the district admin has recommended the use of McAfee VirusScan over NAV for district systems.

To help with your problem, i would use your installation/recovery disk to repair your Windows installation, and with a little luck that may fix you up. If all else fails a reinstallation will probably be in order. Hope this helps.

[jesse]

read your email on a unix machine over ssh and never get a "virus" again

[Chris]

read your email on a unix machine over ssh and never get a "virus" again

I have said it before and I will say it again...Pine baby. Pine rocks the house. I scoff at your virii as I read my message in glorius green text.

[bascule]

I have said it before and I will say it again...Pine baby. Pine rocks the house. I scoff at your virii as I read my message in glorius green text.

I'd love to switch to mutt, if only for proper Maildir support, which would allow multiple concurrent copies open at once and faster mailbox processing...

...but every time I try to switch, I come crawling back to Pine.

[Lady Taint]

Ok, ttickzz, you're saying that I can't take it for granted this virus came from an email and that a visited web site could have shipped me a nasty? Should I get a new email just for safeties sake?

I don't know if the Bio's were damaged/deleted in using the Norton or from the virus, but after I used the recovery disc the whole system just goes to the log on screen and thats about it.

But I am sure that Norton and I are parting company. Ok what is Pine?(it looks a bit complicated from the research I have done on it) Yeah I think I'm only gonna check my email from work, ever again.

So if I get a McAfee will that take care of trojans as well as viruses? Will I need to get Adaware, WinPatrol and Spybot and stuff like that? Are those really helpful?

Thanks folks, can't tell you how much I appreciate this feedback.

[Mr.White]

I would reccomend AVG anti-virus (http://www.grisoft.com/) over anything Mcafee or Norton. It's free and it causes fewer problems.

Forget Pine. Not trying to be insulting, but Pine is way out of your capabilities. Go get Eudora (http://www.eudora.com). Most viruses/worms sent through e-mail are written to exploit vulnerabilities in Outlook Express. Eudora is a much better e-mail client anyway.

A good place for you to get general computing help would be http://www.annoyances.org/ or your call your ISP.

[Lady Taint]

No offense taken at all, cause Pine just sailed over the top of my head and kept going.

Thanks, will bookmark those links and do some reading.