What is Virtumonde?
If you have never heard the word Virtumonde, then consider yourself very lucky. Virtumonde is one of the nastiest malware programs around. For the past five years, Virtumonde has been causing enormous damage and, unfortunately, only seems to be getting worse.
Other People Are Reading
-
History
-
Virtumonde was first seen in 2004, but has mutated since then and continues to remain a threat.
Types
-
Virtumonde is considered a Trojan horse, a program that appears on the surface to perform a desirable function. However, in reality, security functions on your computer are being disabled, giving them access to your computer.
-
Symptoms
-
One of the hallmark symptoms of Virtumonde is the appearance of pop-up advertisements; these ads will appear even when your web browser is not running. It has also been known to disable important features such as automatic updates, task manager, registry editor, msconfig, and some firewalls and antivirus software. It can also disable access to some web sites--especially those which provide instructions on how to remove it.
Infection
-
Most computers are infected after a user has opened an infected attachment in an email, or downloaded infected software from the Internet.
Removal
-
Removing Virtumonde is not an easy process. Most beginning users will do best taking their computer to a professional for removal. Most removal software has proven inefficient against Virtumonde, although Spybot Search and Destroy and Malwarebytes are somewhat effective (and free).
-
