Holy Crap! Spyware!

So I have been working with a computer repair company fpr about 3 weeks now and we got a system in yesterday for a virus and spyware cleanup. I was informed that the problems had been happening for about a month. When i ran a spyware scan with Ad-Aware it returned something on the order of 400 problems most were registry keys starting misc virus, spyware, and trojan programs. I then proceded to run Spy-bot which found around 100 problems(this was after fixing the Ad-Aware problems) and fixed those. Then it was on to virus scanning I used AVG it returned 303 problems mostly trojans. Today as i type this i am running an online AV scan and it found 130 problems a large portion of which are registry keys and some files that AVG didn't catch. My only thing I can say is WOW that's a lot of junk and its no wonder that the computer locked up durring startup. I hope I caught it all. I have spent about 5 hours working on this computer.

back in 2001 when i was a script kiddie,, i was downloading all kind of sh*t full of viruses and malware, i ran norton after a while and had over 8,000 infected files....but that is a lot of junk...

when i was working dsl tech support I was using remote assistance on a cx's pc and she was running 200 processes all at the same time! I was like Holy Sh*t!

Think the most I ever saw was 600+ infected files in Ad-Aware, then last week 500+ files in Spybot. The whole time AVG kept popping up warning of trojan downloaders. I've seen it all. Teenage boys are the worst. Those kids'll wreak havoc on a machine.

I work for tech support at a college university. I support the administration PCs on campus day in and day out. Amoung the other employees, I have the record for the most spyware found on a PC.

One professor PC found 1,646 infections!

Thanks to an updated Adaware...

I wonder what kind of surfing he/she was doing in between classes.

The worst case virus scenario I ever had to deal with was a client machine on a small business LAN. This person somehow contracted the Nimda virus. Norton found 3000+ infected files. Took forever to clean this machine (I'm talking days, not hours :eek: )

By default both adware and spybot count tracking cookies as problems, if that was the case theres only one thing to say, holy hyjackers batman, You found ALL the spyware there is on that box...
I know its sort of taboo here to say this, but depending on what the infections were, i would have fdisked the machine... its quicker and more reliable...

as a point of interest :
how much has anyone scraped off with CrapCleaner ??

my record is two PC's, commercial premises, 1GB each :eek:

Hey Hey,

I spent over 2 years doing student support at the college... You think those numbers are high.. try students machines when they pull them outta the box, plug them into a res LAN and don't install updates... We wanted a Wall of Shame but management didn't feel it was appropriate...

We formatted one computer when a scan hit 22,000+ viruses and still wasn't complete... prior to that the record (virus scan only) was 3200... Usually with AdAware and Spybot we could add anywhere from 1000 - 2000 more results... People just don't care... it works.. and they can pay people to clean it... that's all that matters to them.

Peace,
HT

I hope that for the customers sake they are being charged a flat fee for your service. Spending more than an hour to clean up spyware and such is unexcuseable. At such time you should realize how bad the problem is and backup the customers data ( which you should have done before you ran the first tool) and format and reinstall the OS. If you would have done that you would be done already and the customer would have a fresh system.

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Originally posted here by Gir
So I have been working with a computer repair company fpr about 3 weeks now and we got a system in yesterday for a virus and spyware cleanup. I was informed that the problems had been happening for about a month. When i ran a spyware scan with Ad-Aware it returned something on the order of 400 problems most were registry keys starting misc virus, spyware, and trojan programs. I then proceded to run Spy-bot which found around 100 problems(this was after fixing the Ad-Aware problems) and fixed those. Then it was on to virus scanning I used AVG it returned 303 problems mostly trojans. Today as i type this i am running an online AV scan and it found 130 problems a large portion of which are registry keys and some files that AVG didn't catch. My only thing I can say is WOW that's a lot of junk and its no wonder that the computer locked up durring startup. I hope I caught it all. I have spent about 5 hours working on this computer.

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Welcome to the wonderful world of users

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Originally posted here by Net2Infinity
I hope that for the customers sake they are being charged a flat fee for your service. Spending more than an hour to clean up spyware and such is unexcuseable. At such time you should realize how bad the problem is and backup the customers data ( which you should have done before you ran the first tool) and format and reinstall the OS. If you would have done that you would be done already and the customer would have a fresh system.

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It's not unusual for a cleanup to take 3-4 hours. Consider backing up a customer's data can often take 2 hours or more (I had one backup run 5 hours!), formatting and reinstalling Windows can take up to 2 hours, running all the Windows updates another hour or two, setting up AV apps and other software a few more hours (if you can even replace the software the client had), and you have 4-8 hour job on your hands formatting and restoring a machine to close to what it was. Get real, dude.

5 hours? Were you backing up to an old DAT tape or something? So you mean to tell me you would spend 5 hours on a machine and halfway get it working? Removing spyware and or even one virus from a machine it is never the same. No wonder why people complain about the technician they take their computer to.

He-heh, the only complaints I get is about what I charge. I guarantee virus/spyware removal when I do that work (I'm good!). Generally I don't do backups unless it's as part of an FNR (flatten and reload, aka format and reinstall). That 5-hour job I was referring to was saved to an external hdd. FNR isn't as cheap as you're making it out to be unless the client has nothing they want to save.

Fwiw, I've seen backups on Dell jobs take close to two hours and most of that was the .pst (Outlook) file. Those are scripted backups to migration servers. Yeah, some backups are quick and easy, but you're not saving much.

Data recoveries, there's some serious jack. Last one I did took 24 hours off a bad hdd and made them pay me $400. And that was cheap.

Well, it really depends on your business model at the end of the day IMO.

That is dictated to you by your customer base, unless you are really obese and want to go on a starvation diet ;)

Data recovery you can more or less charge what you like for, as all the customer will do is Google for it, find one or two of these slick rip-off outfits and discover that you are charging a quarter to a fifth of what the big boys do.

The secret is to talk to the customer and agree what you are going to do. I generally go for time (labour) and materials. If you want fixed price then that price will be very heavily loaded. The big boys generally don't start much below $1500 over here.

OK, I don't have a clean room and all the scanning stuff, but I have only ever had to turn down a couple of jobs, and then I charged them for the investigation. In some respects I have to agree with Net2Infinity that you should be able to give an accurate estimate within an hour.

It is amazing just how unimportant data can become when they know how much it will cost to recover it. I generally don't do data backups. If the customer has anything worthwhile, they will already have backed it up, or I will talk them through how to do it. That way they are not going to have problems the next time? If they really need it, they get to pay for it.

Sure, it can take several hours of elapsed time to clean a machine of crap, which is why I don't do that at a customer's house. I charge for actual time spent, and I can do several cleanups at once in the workshop, or be repairing a machine, upgrading, building new and so on...................all at the same time?

Given that everything is obsolete in 6 months and hardware prices are so low, I generally go for format and reinstall because that is the only cost effective solution. Otherwise buy a new machine? (I will build it and harden it for you :D ).

As you might imagine, I am in a position to "make my own rules"...............so you will not be surprised how many times I have managed to recover school course and project work (generally a glaring LACK of it?), but was sadly unable to save the pornography, illegally downloaded music, games scores................... Ack! phtt! sometimes I love my work :D

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Originally posted here by brokencrow
It's not unusual for a cleanup to take 3-4 hours. Consider backing up a customer's data can often take 2 hours or more (I had one backup run 5 hours!), formatting and reinstalling Windows can take up to 2 hours, running all the Windows updates another hour or two, setting up AV apps and other software a few more hours (if you can even replace the software the client had), and you have 4-8 hour job on your hands formatting and restoring a machine to close to what it was. Get real, dude.

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Two hours to install windows and an hour+ for updates? Are y'all on dialup or do you have to reinstall a couple of vacuum tubes on the machine before you can start? Those estimates sound a little exagerated

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Those estimates sound a little exagerated

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Well...I just spent a few hours on my bros laptop...being infected with stuff I had never seen before...

Took several scans with various tools to remove....as it appeared there were several processes tied together.

spywarequake POS was one...and not having seen it before took me a little time to kill it.

Trend housecall worked well....as avast couldnt remove it...access denied

I find it hard to keep up with all the new crap out there.....

was almost at the point of formatting....

MLF

Well hey that's nothing... When I moved our fridge the other day.....

Wrong end of the JonnyStick

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Originally posted here by ShagDevil
The worst case virus scenario I ever had to deal with was a client machine on a small business LAN. This person somehow contracted the Nimda virus. Norton found 3000+ infected files. Took forever to clean this machine (I'm talking days, not hours :eek: )

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I'd have just blown it away and reimaged.

Worst I saw was a students laptop with Nimda and a few others 3000+ hits.

I'd have charged to recover personal information cleanly then scrubbed it. Windows never runs stable after that amount of crap has been through it + no doubt all the crapware smilies progs will have screwed up anything the viruses didn't get.

If it's anything like the plonkers I used to get the PC will have been bought off their mate at work or a bloke in the pub, they'll have no Windows or driver disks and they'll expect you to supply Office for free.

I don't do that crap anymore. I only fix 'em for friends and family and that's usually for wine.

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I only fix 'em for friends and family and that's usually for wine.

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Hey thats my gig :p

I carry around open office on my usb key....for the othe whiners ;)

I have even had businesses say "cant find our autocad cd...you wouldnt have a copy we can use??" :rolleyes:

MLF

Backup a customer's data?!? The last repairshop I worked for and every other one I ever walked into had a sign saying they (the repairshop) weren't responsible for the data and customers are urged to backup important stuff before sending it off.

My last shop also had a policy; software problems aren't covered by warranty. So they had to pay a minimal fee (first hour) and additional hourly wages. Spending 5 hours cleaning it would be unacceptable and very costly.

Well I spent most of the day saturday working on that computer and am up to 10 hrs total got it working and in decent shape. But when I would connect to the internet would get about 6 new connections that I didn't like seeing and couldn't think of a legitimate reason for the computer to be making them. So it's off to the format factory for them yesterday i spent like 3 hrs backing up these people have so much music and in redundant directorys so i just backed it all up. I am currently in teh process of updating the computer though automatic update since M$ says there copy isn't genuine(kinda funny how that works) and am going to hopefully get everything back onto there computer by 7pm its 6 now. Wish me luck.

In response to Net2Infintys coment on how much we are charging them. I have only charged them for 4 hrs of service at $49/hr (we are the cheapest in town and I still feel bad about that charge but meh they shouldn't have been so lazy about there computer)

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Well I spent most of the day saturday working on that computer and am up to 10 hrs total got it working and in decent shape. But when I would connect to the internet would get about 6 new connections that I didn't like seeing and couldn't think of a legitimate reason for the computer to be making them. So it's off to the format factory for them yesterday i spent like 3 hrs backing up these people have so much music and in redundant directorys so i just backed it all up.

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...been there, done that. Good luck. Note that Best Buy's Geek Squad is charging $199 in store, $249 in home/office for what they call "Advanced Diagnostic & Repair" to remove spyware and viruses, so you're not too far off.

That's the dilemma of doing AV work: quickly evaluating what you're getting into. I try to make a judgement in that first hour which way I'm going to go, format or clean. It's not an easy call to make. I wouldn't feel bad if I were you, not unless you can walk on water (and didn't!). ;)

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Windows updates another hour or two,

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HA.... If you're installing off of an xp sp2 disc...you want pain???? try reloading off a w2k (no sp's) cd..like i did last week....you're looking at the better part of a day with the sp1 reboot, sp2 reboot sp3 reboot sp4 reboot Ie6 reboot office sp1..sp2 sp3

a serious pita

gah


(i keep telling myself ...ok..ghost this...but hey that would be too easy)

Uh, zigar, can't you just skip all the service packs, save for the latest (SP4)? That's what I always do with W2K. I think (and I could be wrong) that the latest service packs encompass previous versions).

hmmm... if that's the case ...damn.

i though SP2 required SP1 and it wasn't a cumulative rollup (am i disremembering?) didn't know it had changed. Or am I just thinking that's the way it works because that's how AutoUpdate does it.?

Oh well.. I haven't had to deal with w2k much lately we're virtually all xp boxes now and they're all on AutoUpdate...