164 Malicious Files Moved into Quarantine

You may recall having seen my post about Computer Repair Software back in May of 2008. If so, I hope you’ve listed to my advice and run some of those great programs which should help protect your computer. The other night while using my computer I got a warning from Avast! (a program I had recommended) that my computer had a virus; a Trojan to be specific. Then it happened again, and again, and again. I started a virus scan which ran all night, finding more and more comprised files. After that scan finished I did another from outside windows, then a third within Windows again. More and more new infected files each time. Finally near the end of the 3rd scan, I thought I ought to look for and download any new Avast! virus definitions updates that could be out there. I did, and then I went away for the weekend. upon returning I created an 120gb Acronis backup (outside or windows) which took about 7 hours. Then I entered Windows, scanned again with Avast! and another time with “Malware Bytes – Anti Malware.” This time; nothing. After a bit of research I learned the following:

On Thursday 12.3.09 avast! had a bad false positive issue. At around 00:15 AM GMT an update was downloaded which started flagging hundreds of innocent files as a ‘Win32:Delf-MZG’ Trojans (or, in less common cases, as ‘Win32:Zbot-MKK’.) On Thursday 12.3.09 at 5:50 AM GMT, another VPS update was released, fixing the issue.

If you were like me and quarantined otherwise safe files, there’s some info on how to restore them at the link below. Sorry if this program I recommended caused you any harm, and hopefully your computer was off during the 6 hours this was a problem. If not read some more below.

Link: Win32:Delf-MZG & Zbot-MKK false positive issues