Technical Reviews and Geek Toys

Malware is defined by Wikipedia as a portmanteau from the words malicious and software, is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.[1] The term "computer virus" is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, including true viruses.

Software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software. In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant, for instance in the legal codes of several American states, including California and West Virginia.

With these nasty little bugs on the rise it is often necessary to try to clean the machine offline. This was the case with a recent PC I was asked to clean up. The most annoying symptom, according to the user, was that if a search term was entered and then clicked on, the resultant page was different than the link that was clicked on. Some further troubleshooting also indicated the inability to ping certain websites. The reply came from 127.0.0.1. Therefore I was unable to update the installed anti-malware utilites. Also the machine was so bogged down I wasn't having much luck running anti-malware software. So I packed the machine back to the shop.

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The Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows is bootable recovery CD that contains software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. The List of Tools page provides a list of tools available.

While one can purchase the UBCD4Win CD it is easy enough to build your own. Requirements are:

1. Windows installation CD. Supported Windows versions are:
        • Windows® XP Home Edition (must be slip streamed with Service Pack 1 or higher)
        • Windows® XP Professional (must be slip streamed with Service Pack 1 or higher)
        • Windows® Server 2003, Web Edition
        • Windows® Server 2003, Standard Edition
        • Windows® Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
   
2. UBCD4Win Builder runs on Windows® 2000/XP/2003 systems.
3. You must be able to record an ISO image to a CD-Rom or DVD media.

The creation of a UBCD4Win CD is pretty straight forward:

1. Just download the latest version of the UBCD4Win software and install it on your Windows machine.
2. Insert your Windows Installation CD in the Drive and select the drive as the Source (path to Windows installtion files).
3. Make sure the Create an IOS image radio button is selected as well as ensuring the file name is entred.
4. Click on the Plugins button to customize your build as well as update many of the Malware tools before burning to CD.
5. Click on the Build button to start building the ISO. When completed check for warnings or errors.
6. Burn the ISO to a CD. NOTE: After updating MalWare programs I found the ISO was larger than 700 MB. There may be a way to burn this image to a DVD. I didn't find out. Instead I went into the Plugins and disabled those that I didn't need.

As I mentioned above I was asked to clean a PC that was infected to the point that I was not making any progress in the Normal Boot or in Safe Mode. I booted on the UBCD4Win CD and ran the Malware programs installed and was able to get the machine cleaned up.