Secured Computers

Hello friends. I am not a virus researcher or network security analyser. I am just a computer user like you, who used to be affected by viruses. To get rid of them I found a little trick which found to be quite successful. I want to share this trick with you also. So that you can also get rid of the viruses. So let's start:

Before starting we should know how the viruses are functioning or how they are entering into our computer. The affect of virus has increased to a great extent due to the increase in usage of pen drives. First of all how a virus file looks like? A virus file is nothing but an executable file. You can easily recognize it by seeing it's name. Generally it has an absurd name and ".exe" extension. The extension can be viewed only when we enable it. Bydefault it is disabled in our computer. To enable it
1. Go to My Computer
2. In the 'Tool Bar' select 'Tools' and now select 'Folder Options..'
3. Now go to 'view' tab.
4. Here look at the 'advanced settings' field there is option written as 'hide extensions for know file types'
5. Now dis-select / un-tick it. and click 'apply' then 'ok'
if your computer is not affected by virus earlier then all the files will reveal their extensions.
When we insert our pen-drive into the port then the file-system stored inside it is mounted into our computer. The virus file(the '.exe' file with some 'absurd' name) comes with an 'autorun.inf' file. These two files are hidden inside the pen-drive. After mounting the pen-drive when we double click on the pen-drive icon the 'autorn.inf' file is executed. This 'autorun.inf' file contains the script to execute the executable file (the '.exe' file). When we double click on the pen-drive icon then all these functions (the installation and related affects) are done at the background without our knowledge. Now the drama of the virus starts.
If we do not allow the virus file to start execution then it can not be installed into our computer. So whenever you insert a pen-drive then follow the below steps doing which virus can not enter into your computer.

Steps

1. After insertion don't double click on the pen-drive.
2. click on 'start' menu and go to 'run' option.
3. type 'cmd' and press 'enter'
4. Generally the dos screen displays 'c:\>Documents and Settings\user name>'. Here type 'cd..' without single quotes. Repeat this till you get 'c:\>'. If you have followed standard installation while installing 'Windows XP' then it will two to wire 'cd..'.
5. Go to 'My Computer'. And see what is the drive letter for your 'pen-drive'. Let's assume it to be 'f:'.
6. Go to the dos prompt again. Here type the pen-drive letter. i.e. 'f:'. after writing it should look like- "c:\>f:" (without double quotes).
7. now you have switched to your pen-drive.
8. now type 'dir /a' . i.e. "f:\>dir /a" and press enter. It will reveal all the files and folders present inside the pen-drive, including the hidden files and folders also.
   
9. Now search for suspicious files such as: 'autorun.inf', 'amvo.exe', 'ylr.exe', 'yo2mq6.exe', 'a3g3.bat' etc. See this in the important step. Here you have to guess whether the '.exe' file present (if available) is a virus file or not. This can be done by experience only. As I have already mentioned earlier that generally a virus file contains absurd names. If your pen-drive contains no such types of files then your pen-drive is virus free and now you can double click on your pen-drive at 'My Computer'. If it contains a such type of files then follow below steps.
   
10. at the desktop right click at some blank area, go to new then go to 'text document'. Now open this text document.
11. Now don't write any thing and go to 'file' menu at the 'menu bar'. Click on 'save as..'.
12. When the new save as window opens go to 'File Name' text box and type the name of suspicious file name within double quotes. e.g. "autorun.inf" (with double quotes). Don't forget to mention the extension of the file. Then click on 'save'. This will create a file on the desktop with the same name as that of the suspicious file.
13. Follow step-12 for each of the suspicious file present with in the pen-drive.
14. Now right click on the newly created files present on the desktop and go to ' send to' option and there select the 'pen-drive'.
15. Now the computer will ask permission to replace the older file (the virus one) with the new file (created by you). Select 'yes'.
16. Do follow step 15 for all the newly created file against all the suspicious files.
17. Now safely remove your pen-drive and re-insert it into the port. I am sure that if you have followed the above steps carefully and successfully then there must not be any virus available in the pen-drive. But for verification you can follow from step 1 to step 9 to verify whether still any virus are available or not.

Now open the pen-drive by double click on the icon. And enjoy a virus free computer.
N.B.: This post works only for pen-drive virus. But your computer may be affected by other means also, such as 'internet', 'LAN' , 'a CD which contains virus'. So I am not responsible when your computer is affected through such means.
In the later posts we will discuss on other viruses a