Don't Leave Your Machine Unprotected!

I have surfed the net for years and downloaded all sorts of programs onto my machine without a single problem until a couple of days ago, when I suddenly realised that I had a virus on my computer. A little box appeared when I booted up saying "Kroft$soft says not today!" and if I clicked on the "x" to get rid of the message, my whole computer shut down! Needless to say I wasn't too happy about this, especially as I had no anti-virus program on my machine to deal with it. Fortunately if I ignored the box and opened another application I could still use my computer, so as viruses go this one wasn't too bad! Having only just got my computer re-vamped after a complete hard-drive failure (yes - I never thought that this would happen to me either!) I hadn't got round to getting any anti-virus software on it. I was lucky in that I could still use my PC, but things were going wrong while I was using it, such as some of the desktop shortcuts stopped working.

My husband works in IT, so he told me to download some free software off the Internet and gave me the address. I visited www.grisoft.com and loaded the AGV free anti-virus software onto my computer which took about an hour (my modem is only 28.8kbs), then I waited (very impatiently) for the e-mail with the registration code to arrive) this infact took several hours and came overnight even though it says that it will arrive in a few minutes! I have concluded that this delay is probably due to the fact that we downloaded the program at the weekend, my husband has downloaded it in the week at work and got the confirmation e-mail much faster.

Once the file was installed properly, it got to work immediately, it found the offending virus instantly and repaired my disk. Apparently it was the aptly named KAK-WORM VIRUS and I think that this came in through my e-mails.

HOWEVER IN HINDSIGHT JUST RUNNING THE AGV PROGRAM &
HEALING YOUR DISK IS NOT ENOUGH! AS THE KAK-WORM VIRUS LEAVES AN ALIEN FILE ON YOUR COMPUTER WHICH NEEDS REMOVING MANUALLY!

I found this out as AGV warned me when checking my e-mails that this file was present. AGV did not realise that this file was an alien file so it did not remove it. It healed other files from damage by the virus, but it could not remove this file.

IF YOU HAVE THE KAK-WORM VIRUS ...

As I believe that this virus came in through e-mail, I would advise you to delete any messages from OUTLOOK/OUTLOOK EXPRESS (or other program) Make hard copies of stuff that you need and then EMPTY THE DELETED MESSAGES BOX to fully dispose of your e-mails (just moving to the delete box is not enough).

THEN You have to remove the file "KAK.HTA" the full path is

C:\WINDOWS\STARTMENU\PROGRAMS\STARTUP FILES\KAK.HTA

Then use the file search facility to find any files containing "kak" - use the search strings "kak*.*" & "*.kak" etc. Through doing this I removed a couple of other files that shouldn't have been there.

Lastly, I defragmented my disk in the hopes of writing over the patch where the virus was. This should prevent it from re-surfacing.
TO DEFRAGMENT YOUR DISK - Go to "My Computer", right click on the icon relating to your hard drive (usually C), then left click on "properties", click on the "tools" tab, then click on "defragment now" this will take a few minutes but will re-arrange your files into a better order on your disk. If you want to see what is going on (and it makes for interesting watching!) click on the "show details" button. This will keep you amused until the deframentation is complete! It's always a good idea to defragment your hard drive(s) regularly anyway as it tidies up how evenly files and folders are distributed over the hard disk, rather than having files scatted randomly. (This
happens when you create & delete files over a long time). Defragmenatation speeds up file access meaning your computer will run faster and more efficiently.

Anyway after this and a thorough check and repair of my disks by the AGV anti-virus program, my computer is now back in order again and I feel a lot happier knowing that it is now protected.

This is a very nice little program and very easy to use, it automatically checks the boot sector each time you turn your PC on and you can set it to run regularly, it can even update automatically from the web to keep your machine protected from the latest viruses.
Once you have done the initial run, you can custom set this program to run how and when you want it to. You will notice a new icon on the Start bar, a four-coloured square - double click on this to alter the current settings to suit your needs. This is the "Control Center". I highly recommend ticking the "Use Outlook express 5 plug in" if you have Outlook express as once this is enabled your incoming & outgoing mail will be checked for viruses and certified "Virus free" if they are OK. This offers you great peace of mind. To run a hard drive, CDROM or floppy disk check or to get information on viruses, use the desktop icon, again this is a four-coloured square, but this time it's on your desktop. It also has a section called "Test Results" where it keeps the info on your system checks, so if you have any viruses it keeps note of what you had and when which can be extremly useful to refer to.
There is a version available that you can pay for, but if the freebie works this well, there seems little point in paying. This is a first-class piece of software and a definite must have for every PC! It is so good that I still can't believe that they let me have it for free!

It was very short-sighted of me not to have done anything to protect my PC earlier, it shouldn't have taken this to
get me to do something as I hear about viruses in the papers and on TV fairly regularly. I have no idea where the virus came from, or even how long it had been sitting there quietly waiting to pop up, as the next day it was still there, but hiding - this was before I retrieved the e-mail registration code and zapped it! All in all I got off lightly, but prevention is definitely better than cure. You may not be as lucky! If you haven't got any Anti-virus software, don't wait til after the event as there is nothing worse than losing all your stuff and its extremely tedious to sort out problems once they have arisen.
It costs nothing, so go and get it - NOW!!
(www.grisoft.com)