Page 2 - Help with SmitFraud

the screen, RAM (unless te virus affected that), power supply, etc...

Is it true that certain elements of PC's are almost indestructible to fire and the likes, I heard that after 9/11 some german company could still access data from pc's that were found in the rubble and had dodgy stock market trading about the WTC collapse on them. Or is that just conspiracy at its best?

I've never heard of that, although I'm sure it's possible.

Just an update on my buddy's laptop. We failed in trying to install any software that would help in getting rid of the infection, it was if it knew what we were trying to accomplish and blocked our every turn. Eventually we just backed up all his important files and wiped the hard drive with KillDisc, reinstalled Win XP from the disc and hey bingo everything seems to be ok. However, I am not 100% sure it is totally clean. Anything that can counter possible attacks to get rid of it from its location has to be clever enough to hide elsewhere in my opinion. As I said he has not yet reinstalled his backed-up files yet but it gives us the chance to install SP2, Defender and the likes just incase it does show its nasty head again.

Please beware of SmitFraud - C it is an extremely nasty virus.

why not good old Format? anyway, thanks for the warning I wonder how the virus got in
there in the first place?

He gets tons of e-mails from various sources, we nailed it down to the day of its arrival on the Thursday - when we looked in Outlook there were no messages received in that folder, yet he knows that he get several emails and opened them up on that date. As for KillDisc, well it was a recommendation from a friend to use this and he's normally spot on with info like this.

ok, fair enough. thanks for sharing all this information, hopefully it will make others
more alert!