I recently picked up a fairly interesting virus. It goes like this.
On the first computer I picked it up on, the virus produces random keystrokes periodically. It also starts up programs such as iTunes, Calculator, and Outlook every now and again, and has the irritating habit of putting the computer onto standby at every conceivable oppurtunity. The virus also appears to be invigorated by connection to the internet: it will lie dormant when offline, and then restore itself with renewed vigour when connected back to the net.
Neither AVG nor Avast can pick this up (even with a boot-scan), although Avast does regularly pick up some sort of 'Pwdump' tool, twice, in quick succession, although this may be unrelated. The strangest bit is that random keystrokes still happen even when I've left the comuter at the system password state. This suggests to me that the virus does not reside solely in the hard disk/operating system. I am slightly wary of referring to it as a BIOS virus, as many who have done so have been scorned for doing so and told their keyboard is deffective! I have formatted the hard drive since then, and still the virus is present.
In my infinite wisdom, I used a memory stick to transfer data from this PC to another, and a virus appeared shortly after on this one. However, on this computer, the virus has the irritating effect of stopping the use of keys a-f and j-:/;, ie most of the middle row. The keyboard is not deffective: The keys still function if, for example, another key is held down (such as the shift key). It might be a completely unrelated problem to the first, but perhaps the behaviour of the virus differs from computer to computer.
Your thoughts please?
Many thanks,
MBM
On the first computer I picked it up on, the virus produces random keystrokes periodically. It also starts up programs such as iTunes, Calculator, and Outlook every now and again, and has the irritating habit of putting the computer onto standby at every conceivable oppurtunity. The virus also appears to be invigorated by connection to the internet: it will lie dormant when offline, and then restore itself with renewed vigour when connected back to the net.
Neither AVG nor Avast can pick this up (even with a boot-scan), although Avast does regularly pick up some sort of 'Pwdump' tool, twice, in quick succession, although this may be unrelated. The strangest bit is that random keystrokes still happen even when I've left the comuter at the system password state. This suggests to me that the virus does not reside solely in the hard disk/operating system. I am slightly wary of referring to it as a BIOS virus, as many who have done so have been scorned for doing so and told their keyboard is deffective! I have formatted the hard drive since then, and still the virus is present.
In my infinite wisdom, I used a memory stick to transfer data from this PC to another, and a virus appeared shortly after on this one. However, on this computer, the virus has the irritating effect of stopping the use of keys a-f and j-:/;, ie most of the middle row. The keyboard is not deffective: The keys still function if, for example, another key is held down (such as the shift key). It might be a completely unrelated problem to the first, but perhaps the behaviour of the virus differs from computer to computer.
Your thoughts please?
Many thanks,
MBM
