About Trojans...

[Ygor]

A friend of mine bought a new computer last year. (A Compaq, she didn't listen...)
Within a month or so she had a trojan that Dr Solomon and another program never found.
She ended up formatting the drive(s) and starting over. Got hijacked again and just replaced the drive altogether. Happened again anyway!
I think she finally listened to me when I told her about ZoneAlarm and the grc testing site.

I am still wondering just how it happened just for my own info. She's very careful about any downloads. (I think I am too, but she downloads less than 1/10 what I do.)

Anyway, it seems to me her weak spot must have been ports she knew nothing about that were open. But I wonder... could Sub7 or any other trojan/virus survive a regular format of an entire drive? Could it have gotten into the bios chip and been summoned later?

She seems to be ok at this point. I think she exchanged the danged thing for a new one, so the question remains...

Ideas?

[Prospero]

Depends on if it can get into the boot sector. A regular format doesn't erase the boot sector. When I format, I fdisk the boot drive and clear out all the junk there. It's also called the master boot record.

[Dave_H]

Although some virus's have been known to do such things as stay in memory, infect the boot sector, or write themselves onto the boot floppy to survive a format, I have never heard of a trojan like sub 7 doing so. (Note- I could be wrong).
I think a more likely reason for it to keep re-appearing would be that maybe she is unknowingly re-infecting her computer by installing it after a re-format. Possibly she is installing programs or utilities that she had backed up on disks during the re-install. I don't want to discuss how it is done, but sub 7 can be added to working utilities, can be "hidden" in a zipped up format, and can be "disguised" as things other than .exe's.

Another possibility I hate to mention would be that someone with access to her computer may be installing it. An overprotective boyfriend or a real nosey friend, roommate.

Dave