oh dear

July 2, 2007 3:37 PM

my friend has a computer virus.........

It's called - win32:istbar-au2 (trj)

he's using msn messenger and thats the problem apparently - he's using anti virus programs but apparently it doesnt work.

posted by sgt.serenity to computers & internet (10 comments total)

Your friend should try AVG. And some AVG anti-spyware. That thing is a trojan, not a virus. Also: Get rid of messenger.
posted by IronLizard at 3:41 PM on July 2, 2007

Is the question how to get rid of it? How to prevent later infections? It'd help to have more info (win, *nix or mac? which a/v program) for either scenario...
posted by kellyblah at 3:42 PM on July 2, 2007

**-I would like to append a "duh." to the OS portion of my previous question. And second the AVG suggestion.
posted by kellyblah at 3:43 PM on July 2, 2007

he's using windows - he doesnt know how to get rid of it - apparently it keeps replicating.
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:44 PM on July 2, 2007

Spybot S&D should take care of it.

Tell him to use firefox.
posted by rancidchickn at 3:48 PM on July 2, 2007

This is an older post, but should get him going on how to remove istbar. Ad Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy should both be able to remove it if you don't want to go through the manul removal hassle.

If neither of those work, you can use HijackThis!, but that is for more advanced usage, and has a higher chance of screwing something up if you don't know what you're doing.
posted by stovenator at 3:56 PM on July 2, 2007

There are many things you should do in the future to prevent this, but these are key:

#1: if you're going to insist on running windows, use up-to-date AV software, Spybot S&D, and Firefox (or Opera) for browsing.

#2: put a good hardware firewall between you and the Internet, and lock out all but the traffic you desire (with a simple router, you can eliminate the vast majority of hostile inbound traffic.)
posted by davejay at 4:05 PM on July 2, 2007

I just spent two or three weekends cleaning up a friend's machine. Here's my advice.

1) throughly clean up the machine. Boot from a CD, not the hard drive. Run an antivirus tool over the entire machine. This may take hours.

2) if you can, configure the router to give a private IP address to the computer (that is, do DHCP and NAT). This provides a great deal of protection.

3) Boot the machine. Run Windows Update immediately.

4) Install Firefox. Make it the default browser.

5) If the machine is running XP, install AOL Antivirus - this is a free but complete version of Kaspersky Antivirus. It's excellent but unfortunately is currently XP only.

6) Collect your case of beer / barbeque dinner for the family from the grateful friend.
posted by zippy at 6:14 PM on July 2, 2007

Information and removal instructions here.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:23 PM on July 2, 2007

AntiVir was ranked best among free antivirus software packages in a recent slashdot article. There are better subscription packages though.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:59 AM on July 3, 2007