| My wife came home from work the other day very | | | | only that, but the virus had really taken over a lot of |
| upset. She works for a bank in the mortgage | | | | her computer. We both feared that there was some |
| Department and they had given her a laptop for her | | | | keystroke logging going on in the background. I needed |
| use at work. Someone had sent her an e-mail that had | | | | to get this computer clean from the Trojan horse virus |
| an interesting sounding attachment, so she opened it. It | | | | and get it cleaned quickly. Because it was a computer |
| wasn't long before things started to go wrong with her | | | | that was associated with a bank I needed to get |
| computer. Not only were there multiple pop-ups that | | | | permission from their network guy to be able to log on |
| were taking place all of the time but her computer had | | | | to the internet from home. It turns out that most of the |
| slowed to a crawl. It seems that there were so many | | | | critical programs were actually run from a central |
| viruses and spyware programs running on her | | | | server so there was not a problem with my doing that. |
| computer that it simply could not keep up with the load. | | | | I ran a free program called Hijack This and posted the |
| All of this happened because of one Trojan horse | | | | results to one of the many technical forums on the |
| virus that was opened on her computer that allowed | | | | internet. (I trusted this particular forum, so I did not have |
| all of these other things to happen. If it wasn't bad | | | | any real concerns about privacy.) The technical forum |
| enough that she had the pop ups, they soon begin to | | | | gave me step-by-step instructions on how to clean the |
| become embarrassing. Not only were they trying to | | | | system from the Trojan horse virus and all of the |
| sell her things, but many of the pop-ups were simply | | | | spyware that it allowed to enter onto her computer. It |
| obscene material and pornographic advertisements. | | | | took me several hours and I needed to go in and edit |
| This certainly did not look good coming across on her | | | | system files and the registry but I was finally able to |
| computer all of the time, especially when she was | | | | win out over the virus and her computer was now |
| dealing with mortgage clients. She was practically in | | | | clean. It doesn't matter where an e-mail is coming from. |
| tears by the time she had come home to ask me if | | | | It could come from your mother or someone else that |
| there was anything that I could do. The first thing that I | | | | you know and trust very much. If a Trojan horse virus |
| did was to try to identify what they pop-up windows | | | | is propagating on their system and sending itself out to |
| were and where they were originating from. It turns | | | | others you will likely be a target of this virus as well. |
| out that the particular spyware program on her | | | | Never open anything that you are unsure of, and even |
| computer was of the "Trojan Horse" variety, and was | | | | if you are sure, run a virus scan on it first. |
| actually one of the more difficult ones to remove. Not | | | | |