You think, or know, you’ve got a virus.
You want to unplug your computer from the LAN and internet to curb spreading.
You also want to take your machine offline as soon as possible in order to curb spreading among your local files, and any malicious activity that the virus may be exacting on your precious loot.
“But Harv,” I can just hear you asking, “how can I get rid of the virus if I can’t be online (to download viral removal tools) or even booted into my OS?”
F-Secure knows how. Here’s what you do.
This is best done on a separate (clean) machine that has an active internet connection. I recommend taking the infected machine offline from the LAN right away and turning it off entirely.
- Download the F-Secure rescue disk – http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA/security/security-lab/tools-and-services/rescue-cd/index.html
- Unzip it and burn it with your favorite app. If you don’t have a burning app, I like to use imgburn. http://www.imgburn.com/
- Download http://download.f-secure.com/latest/fsdbupdate.run, and throw it in the root directory of a usb key. (That doesn’t mean a literal root directory. IE if your USB key mounts as E:, I do not mean put fsdbupdate.run in E:root, I mean put it in E:. So the file path should be E:fsdbupdate.run)
- Boot from the F-Secure disk on the infected machine, and plug the USB key in. F-Secure will search it for the fsdbupdate.run file. Note that this file is possibly updated daily, so while you may not need to burn a new copy of the F-Secure rescue CD, you should update this file right before going through this process, if it’s been more than a day since the last time you used it.
- Follow the on-screen instructions.
- That’s it! F-Secure will run, update itself through your USB key, and scan/remove any virii found. Now patch up, plug in, make sure you’ve got a reputable, working anti-virus (such as Avast) application which is up to date and configured correctly, and enjoy a latte.
Originally posted 2009-03-30 16:09:26.
#1 by JessicaWhift on May 10, 2009 - 10:27 am
beautiiful blog merciiiiii
#2 by Ariananupt on May 13, 2009 - 5:25 am
That was nice. Thank you for sharing this one.
#3 by Harv on May 13, 2009 - 10:20 am
No problem. Glad it helped!
#4 by Denny on December 5, 2009 - 11:28 am
Thanks for this info.
One prob. I think I may already know the answer for; I’m getting an error msg. from the cd when it reads the update file from the usb drive. I’m investigating but, I think, because this is an older pc, it may be due to the size of the usb ( 6gig ) and I know fat based os don’t address above 2gig.