Can't find Malicious Software

@sirnose (2436)
United States
March 15, 2012 4:12pm CST
I've been trying to detect this nasty little evil virus for some time now. I know its malicious software impersonating as a process. I have 9 svchost.exe operating on my computer and these are famous for being malware. I've tried almost everything that I could find here on the internet and I still can't find which process is the villain. There seems to be no way to detect which processes is bad but by trial and error. I haven't found any scanner that can help me solve this problem. Question: Can anyone give me a hint as to what I should do besides reformatting the harddrive?
2 people like this
8 responses
15 Mar 12
Run a malware scan. There's no point randomly killing svchost processes. You could find a process information app online which would tell you what's running as svchost but you're much better off just doing a scan and killing it at source.
1 person likes this
15 Mar 12
And incidentally, before you say "I tried that and it didn't find anything"... how do you know it's a virus, given that your scans don't detect it?
@sirnose (2436)
• United States
15 Mar 12
It's some type of malware I'm running my computer in Directory Services Restore Mode (windows domain controller only). This is the only way I can use my computer on the internet. I have "tried that"and some of the scanners did detect Trojans and Hijackers. I have found apps that claim to detect and find bad processes but they're "bull" just like those malware scanners most of them don't fix nothing.
1 person likes this
16 Mar 12
Like I said, what makes you think it's a virus/malware? (A virus is malware, by the way - it's a sub-category.) The best malware scanner I've seen is from Malwarebytes and is free. It sounds like you've got a pile of junk on your computer, though, so you'll probably need to run a couple, a couple of AVs and a couple of rootkit checkers as well, just to clean up. As for the process info apps, I'm not talking about scanners. I mean simple process info apps that tell you what's running each process and the resources it's using so you can figure it out and fix it for yourself.
@SinfulRose (3527)
• Davao, Philippines
16 Mar 12
svchost.exe is a software the normally runs on EVERY computer. That program is really necessary for your computer. If you are looking for the virus, I think you should let an anti-virus do that for you. Are you sure, that what you're having there, is a virus? Are you sure it's not a worm? Can you tell me the "symptoms" your computer is having? Because from what I know, virus is a program that destroys files so when you open then, they're corrupted.
1 person likes this
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
16 Mar 12
Can you boot in safe mode and then system restore? This is how I got rid of a nasty virus not too long ago. I really didn't want to reformat the HDD. It's a pain to download everything to my external and put it back!
• Philippines
17 Mar 12
Oh, i always run my anti virus so it will not destroy my computer files etc. My norton will always run to detect virus the devil virus.Maybe you will detect that easy and hope so.
• Romania
16 Mar 12
I recommend ti scan your pc with malwarbytes and hitman pro.You will find trial versions for both pieces of software on the internet. I wish you good luck!
• Indonesia
16 Mar 12
test
@urbandekay (18278)
15 Mar 12
Download, update and run Malware bytes, it is free all the best urban
@victorkrish (1614)
• Malaysia
16 Mar 12
Try to install malicious remover, in case. Scan the computer before you start to format.hmm.