To Detect Malware Scanning Needs To Be Done Externally

Few days back Brain Krebs had stated in his blog at WashingtonPost.com about how money was stolen from them due to malware on their computers.

Slack Auto Parts located at Gainesville was one of the companies that lost about $75,000 when cyber burglars were able to plant malware on Windows PC of controller to break the internet security. These internet hackers were able to access company’s bank accounts; they were able to create new user accounts at the bank and get money out of it. All this was done in spite of internet security in place. The interesting part of the story is that the anti-virus software in PC was not able to detect malware. Also the cyber security expert hired by the company also gave a clean chit to the health of the system which was in fact infected by  a malware. The affected company was not convinced and hence went for second opinion and it was then “Champi” a Trojan horse program, a malware was detected.

It is not new to know that anti-malware application is not able to detect a particular piece of malware. Many malware programs are efficient in hiding their drawbacks. Then what is option left?

The best option is to scan the system from outside without keeping the malware program running. By doing this it is being ensured that malicious software has no chance to defend itself. It can be done with free Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (UBCD4WIN). This CD program has free anti-malware programs that can be run from CD. These programs update themselves even before starting scanning. The free software that is part of UBCD4WIN is SUPERAntiSpyware, AntiVir from Avira, Spybot Search & Destroy, Stinger from McAfee an AVG free. These are few, there are many more.

UBCD4WIN along with running software from CD also allows sharing of infected C disk for scanning with your favorite anti-malware that is on another computer over the network.  Scanning from outside will help you detect malware that the anti-malware software might not be able to detect. But that is not sufficient as scanning from inside the operating system is also equally important as that will provide you the results with registry scanning and will show registry infection if any. So you have to scan the computer from inside after scanning it from outside.

MalwareBytes and SUPERAntiSpyware are in the direction of developing the software that will scan the infected registry even when the scan is done from outside. This development should be a big breakthrough in the direction of malware detection and removal.