Rupa Bose's Blog

Oftentimes, Americans talking about outsourcing offshoring have stories of  clueless youngsters with incomprehensible accents. I’ll admit that I’ve encountered inefficiencies and poor training; my experience as a consumer hasn’t been all good. One airline managed to give me four mutually exclusive answers to the same question…

But that’s not what I want to write about today. Today, it’s kudos to the Microsoft security people based in Chennai.

My computer had been colonized by the Alureon CT trojan, or actually rootkit . I didn’t even know: Norton Internet Security, (which is what I had) doesn’t see it, let alone block it. Then one day, someone suggested downloading Microsoft Security Essentials. It found Alureon CT, cleaned the computer, and then suggested I restart the machine. I did. And within minutes, Alureon was back.  (Norton still showed nothing amiss.)

Rinse and repeat.

The infection explained some weird things that had been happening – like search hijackings, where clicking on a link took me someother-place.com. I’d attributed it to my computer aging and becoming incompatible with updated search engines. The thing is insidious; it keeps very quiet, but  it can steal passwords and make your computer part of a network outside your control.

I also found that getting rid of Alureon was Not Easy. Someone on one forum opined “formatting and reinstallation of the operating system is the only sure way…“

Someone else suggested opening a support file with Microsoft.  “Start here – https://support.microsoftsecurityessentials.com/ and select the link that says I think my computer is infected and then select the support option for phone (or email if phone is not offered for your region).”

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