Spyware attacks! Windows Safe Mode is no Longer Safe

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    Articles & News

    • Nov 2005
    • 171

    Spyware attacks! Windows Safe Mode is no Longer Safe

    Spyware attacks! Windows Safe Mode is no Longer Safe.
    Article By: Kevin Souter

    Spyware and viruses are getting craftier. New methods allow them
    to boot up even when the user attempts to use safe mode; making
    them extremely hard to remove.

    Many of us have run into an annoying and time-consuming error:
    With your machine running goofey you decide to run a scan for
    trojans and spyware. Following the scan, which usually takes
    forty minutes or longer if you scan the entire system, you are
    hit with the "access denied" error. Frustrating, for sure, but
    being the savvy computer user that you are you decide to boot
    to safe mode to take care of the issue. No spyware can load
    when booted to safe mode, right?

    Wrong.

    The newer variants of the CoolWebSearch, HuntBar, and VX2
    *********s all load even when safe mode is used. There are a few
    different ways of accomplishing this, the most common being that
    the spyware registers itself as a critical system process. This
    ensures that it is loaded regardless of what happens, and makes
    it much harder to shut down.

    If you can't prevent it from loading then how do you kill it?
    The answer to that is easier than it might seem. If you're
    running Windows 98 or ME, then the easiest way is to boot to
    DOS, and use a command-line scanner to search your hard drive.
    These scans actually tend to run a bit faster, since they have
    more system resources available to them courtesy of no GUI
    being loaded.

    "Well, that's all fine and dandy", you're likely thinking to
    yourself, "I run Windows XP. You can't read it from DOS." True.
    You can't read NTFS hard disks from DOS. However, you can use
    Barts PE.

    Barts PE is effectively a stripped version of Windows XP. It
    boots completely from a CD, and loads a simple graphical user
    interface. Coupled with plugins, McAfee, for example, you can
    scan your entire computer without the fear that your nifty
    little ********* has somehow loaded.

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