Rootkit infection requires Windows reinstall, says Microsoft

And this is why prevention is so important.

 

MSE does protect you against it.

 

The article doesn't provide much information. What does it actually do? How is the user infected?

edit: Proper prevention?

 

re-loading a clean image should do the trick as well i gather.

 

For when articles that most people can actually understand? lol

There's no more info about the threat at the moment... https://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E

 

I also would like to know about that.

 

I mean, it doesn't tell us any symptoms...

 

Look here

 

gotcha

 

Well, what remains to be seen is whether or not variant E has the same symptoms as variant B, or if it will have more.

 

What else is new?? We see this all the time, where an article explains the damage it can do, but not how it infects, nor how it can be avoided (probably very easily avoided, no doubt). Nothing but bs scare tactics. Another crock of sh&#. More fodder for those who feast off of this kind of of sensationalistic crap, just to stir up their stagnating imaginations, because they don't really have a life in the first place.

 

why in the hell would microsoft want to use scare tactics when talking about a vulnerability in its own system?

Though the article misrepresents what they say -- Microsoft does NOT suggest reformatting, they suggest system restoring.

 

Vulnerability? I haven't seen any mentions to any vulnerabilities Am I missing something?

Regarding the scareware tactics, don't forget that Microsoft also has a paid-for antimalware application. And, according to some tests Microsoft Security Essentials hasn't been doing so great. MSE shares the same engines as the paid-for product.

This is passing a message, clearly.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E

 

This is where imaging would come in. In a few minutes you could be right back where you were.

 

The title is wrong. A Windows reinstall cannot fix the boot sector, although the setup disc can.

 

I always re image if iI get any kind of infection
this is the only safe way to do it anyhow

but it doesn't happen but very rarely,(luckily)

 

I'm going to release a blog post with more technical details

 

Yeah! I'm always ready for more Hex.

 

been testing this malware in a virtual machine, 1 question i would like answering is does anyone know if an infected system needs to restart for this malware to function correctly?

i ask this because i infected a virtual machine with this malware and it was not too hard to remove the malware and redirection of internet explorer but i think this might have been due to the fact that i forgot to restart the system before i tried removing the malware

 

@treehouse786
Yes reboot after infection to enjoy the carnage

 

so the big powerhouse anti-virus firms can't remove it? MS must be desperate to issue something like that

 

lol thanks, will have a go tonight

 

ok i let the machine restart before attempting to remove it, was pretty easy, am i missing something here? whats the big fuss about this malware?