HELP FLASH10 another virus?

Viruses and worms
1

Please help, You have no clue how sick I am of reinstalling all of my software.

ok… two days ago i resintalled windows… i hate doing it… but i finaly pushed myself to downgrade back to XP because I hate vista… and so of course I spent the last couple days reintalling all of my programs, and so I had to download things like shockwave and flash and java,

when I opened the flash executable… about 10 seconds later avast started detecting virus after virus and displayed all sorts of notifications about blocking access to malicious sites that I had never heard of before. Unfortunatly I understand that this is the typical virus and I will almost certainly have to reinstall windows… again…

but as a last attempt i quickly flipped the power on my network adapter and set avast to run a boot scan, and rebooted.

when it was done scanning, it wouldn’t let me choose any of the options to move, clean, or delete any of the files it detected. it always said “object name not found” and prompted me to choose another option. is this the virus covering it’s tracks.

is there any way i can avoid reinstalling everything again? twice a week is WAY too much

2

If files are detected as being infected. Send them to Chest. It’s the safer action.
I also suggest:

  1. Clean your temporary files.
  2. Schedule a boot time scanning with avast with archive scanning turned on. If avast does not detect it, you can try DrWeb CureIT! instead.
  3. Use SUPERantispyware, MBAM or Spyware Terminator to scan for spywares and trojans. If any infection is detected, better and safer is send the file to Quarantine than to simple delete them.
  4. Test your machine with anti-rootkit applications. I suggest avast! antirootkit or Trend Micro RootkitBuster.
  5. Make a HijackThis log to post here or this analysis site. Or even submit the RunScanner log to to on-line analysis.
  6. Disable System Restore and then reenable it again.
  7. Immunize your system with SpywareBlaster.
  8. Check if you have insecure applications with Secunia Software Inspector.
3

Reinstallation/formatting should be an option of last resort and we aren’t close, start by following through Tech’s general cleansing routine a step at a time and report findings, etc. before moving one.

Right you hate reinstalling Windows, who doesn’t, so what are you going to do to make this less painful if you ever have to do it. Answer, get some disk imaging software there are many out there (try a google search for “disk imaging software”) some are even free.

I use Drive Image 7.1, the last version by PowerQuest before it was bought by Symantec and merged into its Norton Ghost disk imaging software, another option id Acronis true Image, which is compatible with Vista and XP, there are others, most of them are paid options.

I take an image back-up of my primary hard disk partitions every week as part of my system maintenance. This is saved to my second HDD or it can also be written to a DVD. I also back-up volatile data files, .doc, .xls, etc. along with emails, bookmarks, address book, registration keys, etc. (anything you don’t want to lose) every day sometimes several times a day.

So if I experience a problem like yours (haven’t to date) then I just restore my last back-up disk image (takes about 15 minutes) followed by the last daily data back-up (takes seconds rather than minutes) and I will have lost virtually nothing.

Compare that with your experience and the money I paid for my disk imaging software would have paid for itself if it had to be used just once if you valued your time at just £5 per hour. I have had to use it several times (not virus related) where it has hauled my a** out of the fire, it is an absolute god send.

The other thing is prevention rather than cure, as in how do you keep getting infected. Exercise care in what you download and pre-scan things before you try to run them. Have some other tools to provide a second opinion so to speak, such as:

  1. SUPERantispyware On-Demand only in free version.
  2. MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, On-Demand only in free version http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/malwarebytes/mbam-setup.exe, right click on the link and select Save As or Save File (As depending on your browser), save it to a location where you can find it easily later.
4

Disk Imaging software… i didnt know what it was called but the thought went through my mind the other day
“what if i could make an exact copy of my hard drive then i wouldn’t have to even reinstall windows, and of course not my software”

I really appreciate your speedy responses. Im so glad people responded so quickly

i have done most of the things that you listed already, which I explained in my original post. my main problem that I am trying to figure out is in the boot scan it will not let me move to chest, or delete, or clean or anything, only ignore because “the object name cannot be found” I really think its the virus trying to cover it’s tracks, and i cant even boot into windows without getting bombarded with “virus found” messages, it seems no matter how many i get rid of, more appear. when I get viruses, they are always of this kind, and I usually end up wiping, but if anyone can help me get rid of the bombardment of Trojans, and ad ware I got from “flash10.exe” it would be wonderful.

5

You’re welcome.

Without the malware name, file name and location (where it is on the HDD) it is almost impossible to say why “the object name cannot be found” is displayed.

Using notepad, open this file, C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\report\aswBoot.txt it shows those files detected in the boot-time scan copy and paste the lines for the detections into your next post…

The two programs I mentioned above it is better to run these from safe mode as if they find anything it is more effective at removal.

Whilst rootkits are designed to hide malware most don’t run before windows starts so in theory shouldn’t be able to mask or protect what is it hiding from the boot-time scan and that is why the malware name, file name and location are useful to us.

You might want to check out these search results, http://www.google.com/search?q=flash10.exe.

6

:slight_smile: Hi :

Seems your “Flash” may be infected !? Recommend you try the FREE “Flash
Disinfector” with Info and download Site at
http://experi3nc3.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/flash-disinfector-by-subs .