Yikes! My computer is infected! Help!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

Help Techies! I had a weird experience tonight and had to do a hard shutdown of my computer. I am behind a personal firewall and have a wireless network. When I rebooted, I immediately ran Norton Antivirus.

Here is what was infecting my computer:
VerifierBug.class
Dummy.class
BlackBox.class
Beyond.class

What else should I be doing to protect my computer?

Thanks!

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Go to the Symantec website

There should be information there on how to remove the infected files from your system. They saved me from having to reinstall Windows XP once after getting hit with a nasty trojan horse one time. The instructions are fairly easy to follow and thorough.

Actually, I went ahead and copied VerifierBug.Class into their search feature on their support site, and here are what SHOULD be the parameters of your trojan horse infection:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.byteverify.html

If you don't already have it, you should look into a copy of Norton Internet Security. What that does is monitor your internet connection and alert you when someone is trying to dump malicious code onto your computer. You can also dictate exactly what programs will have internet access, so that you can avoid high-risk activity.

Also, make sure that you run Live Update for your anti-virus software on a regular basis.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

2. exactly, and...

make sure your windows OS is updated by going to the windows update homepage.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. Yup! Forgot that part.

:)

Just concern yourself primarily with "Critical Updates and Service Packs", and also maybe the "Driver Updates" sections. Much of the other stuff is optional but not necessary and often it just adds more fluff to your OS that you don't need.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

4. Thanks Everyone!

:-)