What are these two viruses?

Viruses and worms
1

I installed Avast Home edition and requested a scan upon reboot. Avast found a couple instances of Win32:invo and Win32:NewDotnet.c

What are they? How do I look them up in the future? What steps should I take to make sure the computer is now clean? (I selected delete file each time it found one)

2

First deletion isn’t really a good first option (you have none left), ‘first do no harm’ don’t delete, send virus to the chest and investigate.

NewDotNet is adware, but it can be quite nasty as it can hook into your internet connections and removal can mean you lose internet connections.

I don’t know the other one, have you tried your friend google ?

avast is a resident (on-access) scanner so it will be trying to stop malware getting on to your system, but running an on-demand scan periodically weekly/fortnightly, should be enough.

I also believe in a multi application approach to security as no single program is likely to give 100% protection.

If you haven’t already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it periodically.

  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.
3

DavidR,

Thanks. I will try to use chest as a first option from now on. I did google both. Got the same result you did NewDotnet = adware and invo involves broadcast emails. I have to say as a new user that as much as I used to hate Norton, Norton did have a knowledge base page for every virus including:

Level of risk
What it does (popup ads, broadcast emails, steal your passwords, etc.)
and just as valuable was whether the virus tries to proliferate itself.

I have a home LAN and I am always concerned the first thing that the nastier viruses try to do is infect other computers.

In any event I appricate your comments and I will download the malware software.

New developments:
Avast now reports win32:monder-gb and win32:Trojan-gen. I have ‘moved to chest’. Will check back to this thread when I can.

4

I honestly don’t go looking for what a virus does very often, only in the cases of these forums, etc.

Doing a search on the malware name often brings little or no useful information as there is no standard naming convention in malware naming so the same virus/malware could have multiple aliases, so searching on the file name often produces more results and gives aliases also. There is nothing to stop you using their virus database resources though. avast is in the process of putting together an online database based on detections reported/detected, however, that isn’t going to happen overnight.

5

HI there I think you should find out what they all do and try to delete them one by one but make a somekind of restore frist. I think your best bet is to let avast do a full boot scan and unplug your internet it may try to stop you from removing them.

6

@ zone12
As I already said to the original poster.

First deletion isn't really a good first option (you have none left), 'first do no harm' don't delete, send virus to the chest and investigate.

So advising a user to delete files could leave them with a problem with little in the way of a fall back position (which the chest provides) and is ill advised.

7

dbhinla,

You didn’t say which os & firewall you are using. A good firewall with outbound protection can keep malware from sending out sensitive info. I recommend ZoneAlarm. We need to know your os ( XP, Vista, etc.) to make a proper suggestion.

A good fw can keep some malware from getting on your system.