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punkvigtssd.exe Just blew through McAfee

DietDrThunder

DietDrThunder

Platinum Member
I have McAfee virus scan software on my desktop (on the laptop right now), and have McAfee site advisor loaded on FireFox. Well my wife did a google search for Electrolux and clicked on a green check marked link, then BOOM! This fake McAfee clone like software came up and started what looked like a anti-virus scan. It disabled McAfee, and made it almost impossible to open the task manager to kill the program. I couldn't even do a regedit from a cmd prompt. The only way I could open the task manager was to reboot the PC and open the task manager before any other programs could start up. I was able to then kill the program. I then ran regedit and saw this punkvigtssd.exe in the windows/run and it had been installed the exact moment this started happening. I followed the directory path and deleted the program, then I removed it from the registry.

I'm doing a full McAfee scan of the PC right now. Is there anything else I should check?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
 
I don't know the particulars, but a Malwarebytes scan wouldn't hurt also. That seems to do a good job of filling in the gaps A/V products leave behind.
 
lxskllr said:
I don't know the particulars, but a Malwarebytes scan wouldn't hurt also. That seems to do a good job of filling in the gaps A/V products leave behind.
Click to expand...

Do you have a good suggestion as far as anti-Malware software? I don't think I trust McAfee anymore.
 
My setup is Avira free, Spybot S&D, and Spywareblaster. I occasionally run a Malwarebytes scan, but that hasn't found anything yet. My machine stays pretty clean.
 
Cepak said:
Do you have a good suggestion as far as anti-Malware software? I don't think I trust McAfee anymore.
Click to expand...

I suggest starting with non-Admin user accounts and some other basic security tweaks for Windows: http://www.mechbgon.com/security You want a security strategy where your antivirus software is a third-string defense, not your last hope.

As a former SiteAdvisor Experienced Reviewer, I advise not relying on SiteAdvisor's ratings in the slightest. You might as well roll dice or something. Srsly.


In your current situation, it might be wise to run HijackThis and run your logfile through the auto-analyzer at http://hijackthis.de/en to help you check for remaining stuff. It would also be very smart to run the Secunia PSI utility and fix all insecure programs it reports (it'll give links to the security patches), and go to http://update.microsoft.com to upgrade your Windows Update engine to the Microsoft Update engine (which patches more variety of Microsoft stuff).
 
I've been stupid and lucky. I've been running XP Pro for 5 years on the default "Administrator" account. After running the virus scan and malwarebytes (it found 15 various problems which it fixed), I started doing what mechBgon suggested. My only problem now is that since I was using the default "Adminstrator" account, once I added a new Superuser admin account, the old "Administrator" disappeared with all the email setting, etc. So I'll have to find where the email file is located (hopefully it wasn't removed) and set all that up again.

I'll also give mechBgon's other suggestions a try.

Thanks guys for the advice.
 
Cepak said:
I've been stupid and lucky. I've been running XP Pro for 5 years on the default "Administrator" account. After running the virus scan and malwarebytes (it found 15 various problems which it fixed), I started doing what mechBgon suggested. My only problem now is that since I was using the default "Adminstrator" account, once I added a new Superuser admin account, the old "Administrator" disappeared with all the email setting, etc. So I'll have to find where the email file is located (hopefully it wasn't removed) and set all that up again.

I'll also give mechBgon's other suggestions a try.

Thanks guys for the advice.
Click to expand...

To get your email settings,

1) start in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key when you know the first WinXP splash screen is about to appear during boot-up

2) now the old Admin account will be available to log in

3) log into it, run Outlook Express (assuming that's what you were using) and I believe you can export your mail account settings by going to Control Panel > Mail, highlighting an account, and exporting it to a known location on your drive that your other account can access.

4) restart in normal mode, log into the other account, and you should be able to import the email setups without having to do it all manually.


Hope that helps 🙂
 
I have Office professional 2007 with full blown outlook ($15 through my work). I'm sure I should be able to do something simular to the instructions you've given.

Thanks for the tips.
 
I'm trying to set up limited accounts on my desktop like mechBgon has suggested. The problem occurs when starting Outlook in Office 2007 on the limited account. It starts to install personal settings, etc., then multiple Internet Explorer Sript Errors occur with blank information. I've gone into Internet Explorer but the debug option and display options are already set correctly. What do I do now? If I set the account to an administrator account, the script errors don't occur. But the minute I change it back to Limited, the script errors occur again.
 
Sounds like the scripting engine needs administrative rights, which it shouldn't. There's something out of whack in the settings for Security. What happens if you completely disable scripting options in Outlook?
 
Avira Anti-Vir is what I use... Nothing has gotten past it, to date.

I've never trusted McAfee, and I've heard horror stories about it.
 
I never had issues with Avira, currently I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials. That's picking up tons of stuff that other programs are missing. People like to trade external HDDs out here and scans with Norton or McAfee are missing quite a bit.
 
For antivirus I really like NOD32 from Eset, its fast and it has halted some drive-by attacks for me in the past. (I had some stuff blast right through MSE earlier this year)

For additional protection, I use (even on linux) the noscript, adblock, and WOT plugins for firefox, OpenDNS, and a customised hosts file from here: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

I append the winhelp file to mine as I have some of my own stuff in there, also they suggest redirecting to 127.0.0.1 whereas I prefer 0.0.0.0 so I don't end up waiting for timeouts.

The noscript plugin alone would probably have saved you in this case.
 
I'm not sure about SuperAntiSpyware, anymore. I recently cleaned a notebook infected by a rogue security app, removed the hard drive and installed it in a USB enclosure. SAS found nothing - not one security risk - and I used SAS first. MSE picked up and successfully cleaned a total of five. McAfee VSP found a sixth.
 
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