Need Malware removal suggestions

My mother-in-law's laptop has some sort of malware that I am trying to figure out how to get rid of. My thought is to boot to a Ubuntu Live CD or something similar and run a scan from that environment. Do any of those have anti-malware/anti-virus programs included?

Is there a better way to tackle this?

Any input would be helpful.

I would use Spybot Search and Destroy first, then follow it up with another program. I can't think of a second free one at the moment.

Spybot has a really high success rate. I've only seen a few things get past it and the second program usually catches it.

I agree, SpyBot is great, but there are at least a couple of trojans it can miss, or at least cannot remove them. I had one that one that raped my steam acct and I'm still not 100% sure I removed it all the way yet. I won't trust that one until I reformat.

AVG Free edition is another good one to try. It finds a lot with a deep overnight scan.

Spybot, adaware then the new MS one. I can get you a link or give you the installer tomorrow.

Adaware was the other one I was trying to think of.....

Thanks guys. Bubba I'll take those links on Thursday unless you are posting them here. I won't be at their house to fix it until this weekend so there is no big rush.

its in your user directory here at work.

All good advice. The only main thing I would like to add is run these from safe mode!
Running any of these tools from Ubuntu, or any bootable CD, is even better but can be a pain to have the latest versions on it...

I also recommend gong into safe mode with networking and going to housecall.trendmicro.com and using their online scanner. it is not bad.

Safe mode brings up a good point. I had something that couldn't be removed except through safe mode.

Now Spybot has a feature that is cool. If it identity's something it can't remove, it will ask you about starting up prior to anything else in windows, then it will reboot and do a full scan. I really like that feature.

Atomm wrote:Safe mode brings up a good point. I had something that couldn't be removed except through safe mode.

Now Spybot has a feature that is cool. If it identity's something it can't remove, it will ask you about starting up prior to anything else in windows, then it will reboot and do a full scan. I really like that feature.

Avast does that as well. I will 3rd safe mode

So I went ahead and DL'ed and installed the latest Spybot-Search & Destroy. I had forgotten to install it over my last few reinstalls. Looks OK, just a couple tracking cookies, except for this:

SMITFRAUD.

I'm not getting any popups, hyjacks, etc. I'm a bit concerned about cleaning it because it is pointing at explorer.exe. I don't want that to get messed up in the cleaning.

Any experience with this, and how safe do you think it will be to let either Spybot or the SmitFraud fix clean it?

I am quite familiar with smit-fraud. Its a big pain in the ass. I wish I remembered. Spybot will be fine, but it won't remove it permanently.
I think there is a smitfraud removal tool. I am sure I have a good one, let me look tonight

Hey Doc, next time triple wrap..... 😈

Bubbaspanky wrote:I am quite familiar with smit-fraud. Its a big pain in the ass. I wish I remembered. Spybot will be fine, but it won't remove it permanently.
I think there is a smitfraud removal tool. I am sure I have a good one, let me look tonight

This it?
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/files/smitfraudfix.php

Yup!

Run it a couple times to be sure its gone, smitfraud is persistant