Something About Security Risks

A week ago something called W32.Spybot.Worm crept it's ugly self onto my computer. The main job of this worm is to disable Windows Security Updater. Every so often I would get an alert from my Norton Internet Security firewall that the Windows Security Updater had been disabled. Norton makes it easy to quickly enable the updater but fails to completely remove the actual culprit. Every virus scan I ran with Norton detected the worm put could only "partially" remove it. Things got really interesting on Tuesday.

I found a virus protection program called Kerpersky that has had some success in removing the worm. I downloaded the trial version but, upon installation, was told I could not run 2 virus scanners at the same time. I had to remove Norton to fully install Kerpersky. I decided to give it a shot. I removed (I assumed, anyways) Norton from my computer and moved to install Kerpersky. I have an extended download with my Norton subscription, which means I can reinstall the program 3 times in one year. With every attempt I kept being told that Norton was still on my computer. Huh? The virus scanner and firewall had been removed, but for some reason my computer was still showing some instances of Norton on my computer. I gave up on my Kerpersky idea and decided to just reinstall Norton. The problem was that I had to completely remove Norton from my computer before I could reinstall it. This proved to be easier said than done. I spent at a minimum 8 hours trying to fully remove Norton from my computer to no avail. Every time I failed to remove it I was given a link to a removal tool on the Symantec website. This removal tool failed every time. Keep in mind I now had no working virus protection on my computer. Through my web searches I came to learn that completely removing Norton from your computer is a problem shared by many people. I read countless tricks and suggestions, but nothing worked for me. I finally came upon a removal tool located on the Symantec website. You can find it here. It worked on my first attempt, and I was finally able to completely remove and then reinstall Norton onto my computer. It sounds logical that I would find the tool on the Symantec website, but it was very difficult to find. I found it through one of my Google searches.

I do feel much better that my virus protection and firewall are back up and working, but I'm still to resolve the worm that started this whole situation. It seems strange because the worm has been around for a couple of years now. Surely someone out there knows how to get rid of it! If anyone has any experience successfully removing W32.Spybot.Worm, please, let me know!

UPDATE!!!!!
I ran Panda, an online virus scan, and it seems to have removed my worm. You can find the link here. You have to be using Internet Explorer to run the scan. I ran the scan on March 22nd and as of today (March 25) I have yet to have seen a repeat of the worms activities. I think it might actually be gone this time!