My dad can't remove a virus on his computer. What should he do?

[DaDude]

My dad works in Networking and with his skills, he was able to see that someone is hacked into his home computer. He uses McAfee Total Protection and has been using it for many years, so he doesn't understand how this hacker was able to bypass the software's proection. He's done a whole computer scan and the McAfee will not find anything wrong. He even went as far as downloading some free anti-virus softwares such as AVG, but those didn't find anything either.

I told my dad that he should just reformat the computer, but he said he can't because not only does he not have the CD backups for his OS, softwares and drivers, but the McAfee is a downloaded copy that he renews every year, so he can't reinstall it once it's gone from the reformat. So, he's stuck with this virus.

Is there anything my dad can do? He's on the verge of just throwing his computer out the window in frustration. Can anyone help?

Thanks!

[Japlabot]

Keep the PC and buy a new Dad :devil:

[Kelxin]

Keep the PC and buy a new Dad :devil:

I literally LOL'd....

Edit: Yay, 500 posts over the past 9 years... haha

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Yeah, there is no way that we can provide a reasonable suggestion unless we know how/why he believes he has been hacked. From the information provided so far I'm not even sure if there is a problem that needs solving.

[HardyRexion]

Smells of troll / boredom

[Tech085]

I would throw my dad's computer out the window too if he ever ask me to help him with a virus.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

There is one thing I have not seen mentioned/suggested here, and that's to contact McAfee's technical support and ask them for assistance in identifying the threat, saving off the bits they need for their researchers to add detection and performing manual removal of the threat, either by walking your father through this procedure over the phone or via a remote session.

Your father made a decision to purchase a commercial software package over using a free one. Presumably, one of the reasons he did this was so that he would be able to obtain technical support in case of an issue. I would say that an issue requiring technical support's intervention has occurred, and that your father should take advantage of the support provided by the developer of the software just for such a scenario.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

P.S. I ran McAfee Associates' technical support department from 1989-1995. I am not sure what the current policies are, but when I was there it was policy to provide assistance for free to anyone who had a new, undetected threat.

[alphamale]

amazing how a thread can survive on so little from the OP.

[DaDude]

I do apologize for the confusion. It was partly my fault for starting a thread on a problem that is not mine. Since it is not my problem, it is very hard for me to provide all the details since my dad is the kind that doesn't share everything with me. Thanks for trying to help though. I appreciate it.

[_dandy_]

Did you dad trace the IP address of hacker?

...using a GUI interface, written in Visual Basic?

[Jose_49]

This thread has become like politics: Too much blah blah, and no action ;)

[Kami-]

I'd go with what +goretsky has already suggested and contact McAffee for their customer support; if it wasn't detected by their software they should assist in omplete removal of the threat for free.

Also, if he works in networking, I'm fairly sure he can obtain a copy of an Operating System, drivers can be obtained from this mystical place called 'the Internet' and McAffee can be reinstalled from his online account - assuming he was smart enough to set on up (which if he actually works in networking, he surely would be).

This is yet another case for why it's a good idea ot have a clean image of your system stored externally for fast get up and go after a wipe.

One further note is, in the case of a rootkit stored out of the region on the drive that can be seen by Windows you may need a live CD or something to remove it.

[Coagulated]

I don't mean any malice with this post but...

LOL