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  3. Rootkits question...

Rootkits question...

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  • C code frog 0

    Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

    S Offline
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    Shog9 0
    wrote on last edited by
    #8

    I haven't seen one yet that doesn't show at least something in RKR. I'm sure there's something out there, but i doubt most garden-variety malware authors would waste the effort - if you're running RKR, you're probably already outside of the target "audience". That said, if you're suspicious it can't hurt to cover your bases: keep an eye on your router logs, set up your firewall to block everything for a while, etc. But you're probably better of looking at running processes/services first - i had an afternoon last week where my machine slowed to a crawl, finally tracked it down to having accidentally hit F1 in Visual Studio (dexplore.exe was sitting in the background, windowless, chewing up an entire core).

    Citizen 20.1.01

    'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

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    • C code frog 0

      Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

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      P Offline
      Pete OHanlon
      wrote on last edited by
      #9

      I suspect the issue will have more to do with the services that were running, and the service packs/updates that have been applied. You've gone back to what's effectively a clean machine, so the machine will be snappier. Just wait till a few updates have been applied before it goes back to sluggish sloth mode.

      "WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

      My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys

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      • P Pete OHanlon

        I suspect the issue will have more to do with the services that were running, and the service packs/updates that have been applied. You've gone back to what's effectively a clean machine, so the machine will be snappier. Just wait till a few updates have been applied before it goes back to sluggish sloth mode.

        "WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

        My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys

        C Offline
        C Offline
        code frog 0
        wrote on last edited by
        #10

        This laptop has *SICK* resources. So she bought VMWorkstation 6.0 and I'm installing it. She will do all web and other "interesting" activities in the VM which will automatically discard changes each time it's powered down. She is only allowed to do "work related" stuff in the host OS and she is just savvy enough to see the merit in the idea, approve of it and also understand how to do it all.

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        • C code frog 0

          Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

          L Offline
          L Offline
          Lost User
          wrote on last edited by
          #11

          code-frog wrote:

          So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble?

          I can speak with sufficient authority on this particular subject as I have studied rootkit/anti-rootkit techniques for several years. Yes, rootkits have reached a level where they can remain completely and absolutely undetectable to the host machine. RootkitRevealer[^] is no longer being developed and should not be relied upon. It will only detect hidden file objects and registry keys belonging to very old rootkits. Nearly all of the rootkits currently in the wild use RootkitRevealer as a testing reference to ensure their files are hidden. GMER[^] does a slightly better job. RADIX[^] although not very popular... is an excellent runtime forensic tool. The chance that you have obtained one of these advanced rootkits is extremely low. Most of these high-level rootkits never leave the proof-of-concept stage and enter the wild. It is more likely that some memory hog or spyware is causing the symptoms you are experiencing. Best Wishes, -David Delaune

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          • C code frog 0

            Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

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            I Offline
            IdUnknown
            wrote on last edited by
            #12

            When normal malware detection programs (ie. Spybot, CCleaner, Anti-virus) fail, I'd run SDFix[^]. Just last month I had to run SDFix on my brother's computer because the anti-virus program found something but couldn't remove it.

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            • C code frog 0

              Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

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              T Offline
              ToddHileHoffer
              wrote on last edited by
              #13

              I installed a virtual dvd drive, I think it was from daemon tools. The virtual driver caused some kind of hardware interupt problem on my notebook and made it slower than hell. It took me 3 weeks to figure out that this was the cause of the problem. The processor usage would always be jumping up but there was no executable running.

              I didn't get any requirements for the signature

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              • C code frog 0

                Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

                S Offline
                S Offline
                Stuart Dootson
                wrote on last edited by
                #14

                code-frog wrote:

                It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow

                Sure it's not just your bog-standard Windows bit-rot? :-D

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                • S Stuart Dootson

                  code-frog wrote:

                  It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow

                  Sure it's not just your bog-standard Windows bit-rot? :-D

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                  U Offline
                  User 4217455
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #15

                  Hi, If your laptop is not performing as it should, and you cannot find any obvious issues with it, may I suggest that you check out your power supply. I had a laptop that was running very sluggish, turned out that the power supply was faulty, and was delivering power at a slightly lower voltage, causing slower processing times. It's worth a try.

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                  • C code frog 0

                    Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

                    U Offline
                    U Offline
                    User 4117824
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #16

                    Why do so many people still take for granted that a computer can get infected with rootkits in the first place? Getting rootkits is one thing, preventing them another... Have you ever tried EasyMalwareBlocker? (www.easymalwareblocker.com) :thumbsup: Ever since I use this program my machine never got infected with any kind of malware, including rootkits!

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                    • C code frog 0

                      Is anyone here leading edge on rootkit detection? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx[^] I have a laptop that I'm positive has a kit. It's normally snappy, fast and all that. Now it's dodgy and slow (reminds me of a mac) :joke: and well... I'm wondering... the above tool is the one I trust most and it ran clean. So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble? If you want to know about rootkits the linked page at Microsoft actually was a good read. Not too long but still informative the polar opposite of MSDN but then it's got Russinovich involved so no surprise. They dude is a legend incarnate.

                      M Offline
                      M Offline
                      Member 4031573
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #17

                      Check your bios and see if your HD has a mode like 'bypass'. Switch it to performance and it will speed up quite a bit. I have run into several systems that changed to bypass for no apparent reason. ;)

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                      • L Lost User

                        code-frog wrote:

                        So if anyone here can speak with authority. Are the rootkit authors still way ahead of the police on this? Can rootkits still be totally hidden or should the above tool find them with no trouble?

                        I can speak with sufficient authority on this particular subject as I have studied rootkit/anti-rootkit techniques for several years. Yes, rootkits have reached a level where they can remain completely and absolutely undetectable to the host machine. RootkitRevealer[^] is no longer being developed and should not be relied upon. It will only detect hidden file objects and registry keys belonging to very old rootkits. Nearly all of the rootkits currently in the wild use RootkitRevealer as a testing reference to ensure their files are hidden. GMER[^] does a slightly better job. RADIX[^] although not very popular... is an excellent runtime forensic tool. The chance that you have obtained one of these advanced rootkits is extremely low. Most of these high-level rootkits never leave the proof-of-concept stage and enter the wild. It is more likely that some memory hog or spyware is causing the symptoms you are experiencing. Best Wishes, -David Delaune

                        C Offline
                        C Offline
                        cpkilekofp
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #18

                        Randor wrote:

                        The chance that you have obtained one of these advanced rootkits is extremely low. Most of these high-level rootkits never leave the proof-of-concept stage and enter the wild. It is more likely that some memory hog or spyware is causing the symptoms you are experiencing.

                        That's what I thought, and told him...

                        Randor wrote:

                        GMER[^] does a slightly better job. RADIX[^] although not very popular... is an excellent runtime forensic tool.

                        ...but thanks VERY much for these links :)

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                        • C code frog 0

                          Yeah. I read that. That's why I thought to ask here too. I did a disk image and reinstalled and it's fast again but is that just par for a format? Does it imply something more... I'll leave it reformatted and give it back to the owner. She can always wonder I suppose. I ran Spybot S & D, Webroot a few online cleaners and AVG all came clean. Not even a ton of cookies.

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                          patbob
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #19

                          It could be part for a reformat. My laptop got dog slow one day. After a few weeks, I figured out that it had somehow spontaneously turned the disk caching off. Turned it back on and everything was snappy again (well, as snappy as a 2000-era laptop can be).

                          patbob

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