Computer Virus Question

Factual Questions
1

Today when I turned on my laptop I immediately got a pop-up notice from AVG that I had several viruses I had apparently picked up yesterday, mostly trojan horses from the look of it. The AVG software swept into action and immediately and moved all of these viruses to the “virus vault” which is described in the help section of AVG. “The Virus Vault is used to lock up infected files out of harms way. You can use the Virus Vault to heal files at a later date and restore them to their original locations on your disk. Files are moved to the Virus Vault during tests and by resident components like the AVG E-mail Scanner.”

When I select the individual corrupted files in the virus vault in an attempt to heal them it tells me they are not healable at all. Is it safe to use my computer because the viruses are locked up in this virtual vault or do I need to take additional steps to remove these viruses before I use the computer to do anything pertinent?

2

It is safe to use your computer. AVG has isolated these files. What you’ll want to do is select “Empty Vault” and that should remove everything. Run another scan just to be sure. Also, run Spy-Bot or something after while you’re cleaning house.

3

Think of the bad files as having been stuck into a Zip file. Not going to do anything unless you bring them back out of the vault.

One thing to check is to see if any of the files are needed by the OS or applications. (As opposed to just the malware’s own files.) Getting a clean copy and putting them back would be a good idea.

Do you know about the “sfc /scannow” command?

4

They’re quarantined, just delete them, and run another scan to be safe. (plus as Flander mentioned it would be prudent to run a spyware scan as well, Adaware is a good one)

5

Thanks guys! I am running the Adaware program now.