Microsoft's malware fix: nuke your drive

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft's malware fix: nuke your drive

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Apr 4th 2006

I made the switch to the Microsoft Anti-Spyware app, now called Windows Defender, and haven't looked back. The latest major change has turned the tool into an invaluable one on my machine. But Defender can't do it all. In fact, we all know that rootkits, spyware, and badware in general could crud up our computers at any point, right? Well MS is cogniscent of this, and has a real fix: wipe your drive, and reinstall. Yep, that's it! Billions of bucks in R&D can't be wrong kids, it only takes a giant magnet and some extra time to be free from malware. Oh, and a terrific backup scheme... Who says this? According to the story on eWeek, Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft. The choice quote from Mike is, "When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit." Mike goes on to explain some malware is just "way too hard" to remove, thus requiring a total wipe and reinstall. They had to do this with a certain unnamed government branch, wiping and restoring 2,000 machines. The good news is, with rootkit attacks on XP SP2 on the rise, all you fixit types, IT guys, and family computer monkeys will have job security at least until Vista ships sometime in the not too distant future... Huzzah!

Tags: defender, malware, rootkit, spyware, windows defender, WindowsDefender, xp

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Brian Most said 5:21PM on 4-04-2006

Just to be clear - this guy is saying that Microsoft aren't good enough to secure Windows against spyware authors, but spyware authors are good enough to secure Windows against Microsoft?

Peter said 6:58PM on 4-04-2006

It's really just a question of how much time you want to spend on it. Once the machine is infected beyond a certain point, it would take less time to wipe and rebuild than it would to recover. At least with rebuilding you can be sure it's clean, if you try to clean up you never can be sure you got everything and you might be faced with rebuilding later. Rebuilding might end up being faster in the long run.
You have a current backup, right? :)

2003raptor said 11:21PM on 4-04-2006

too bad spybot and spyware doctor say different. lol
ive been able to COMPLETELY remove 1000's of spyware/adware/malware and viruses with those programs. COMPLETELY. not Kinda... lol

EAT YOUR HEART OUT M$ R&D!!!

Jen said 11:42AM on 4-05-2006

Microsoft is pushing their anti-spyware app, and then comes out and says it's not good enough and people should wipe their hard drives? This is like Bizarro world.

frEEringTone said 7:05AM on 4-06-2006

Microsoft - suxx! Linux - rulezz! He-He :-)

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