Hit by the Zentom Malware

Posting from the library, looking up cures, limited to 1 hr per day. Hope to be back with you soon.

ETA: Day two - no luck yet. SIGH. #&^?~~~~ <--- = Me Cockeyed and drooling with frustration. Later all!

More ETA: Still day two. I've run a goodly number of anti-virus/malware products, and seem to have things under control. Many thanks to all the wonderful folks fighting against the bad guys, and making their efforts available for free for those of us who can't even afford anything else!

I know I'd gotten the actual executable virus off my computer within the first hour or two of infection, but cleaning up the re-infectors and the side effects has taken a whoe battery of programs, and several hours-long scans. Time to burn those music and pic files, not to mention all the knitting patterns, on to cds, right? Or better yet, trash the ones that aren't needed any more - that could be several thousand files right there.

I'm back on the web, with no probs for a couple hours now, but I'm not ready to email anyone from this computer yet - not even the one or two folks on this crazy planet that I don't like! I just have to hope the library computers I'll be using for email are safe. I'll try to remember to mention in the subject line that I'm sending from the library, so if you get a message from me you'll know it wasn't from this computer.

Thanks for your good thoughts and wishes. I hope to be confident in this computer's safety within a couple more days.

Still More ETA: Day three Sunday AM - surfed about 4 hours with no problems. GOing to start running all the scanners concurrently while I go walking. If they all come up clean I'm pretty sure it's taken care of. Probably take 5 or 6 hours running them all at once.

Last ETA: All scans ran clean, so I'm 99.999% sure that my computer is completely healed.

I've sent myself emails and they've scanned clean. Rootkit attacks are not known for affecting email or grabbing the contact lists, especially from web based email services, where none of that information is stored on your own computer, but I'd rather be safe than have my friends be sorry! So I'll keep experimenting for a couple days before emailing anyone else.