Virus Problems - Unwanted IE popups

I had a typical virus problem to troubleshoot the other day at work. We had a Windows XP laptop running Sophos Anti-virus and Spybot Search and Destroy opening up IE pop-ups at random. After running a complete system scan with both Sophos and Spybot, I choose to fix the problems through console (both the applications had found a few). However, this doesn't seem to have solved the problem.

That is when I launched process explorer and noticed that these processes of iexplore.exe were being launched by svchost.exe - strange wasn't it. Upon further investigation I noticed that the location of this particular svchost.exe was different from root folder. Bingo! Deleting this svchost.exe resolved the unwanted IE popup problem.

This also explained why the virus went undetected by both Sophos and Spybot, the reason being svchost.exe was being treated as a system process, hence wasn't malicious. But what would have been worth noting would have been the location that it was running from. I leave that for the Anti-virus makers to think about.

Happy Ending :D

./M

Comprehensive Guide On Troubleshooting Sound Problems in Ubuntu

Just moved to linux and your sound isn't working? Here is a step by step guide to troubleshoot audio problems in Ubuntu. This would prove to be very helpful for those who are novice to the world of Linux and need help in fixing problems with sound card and enjoy good music:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449

./M