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SECURITY

Sometimes, Command Prompt Is the Best Windows Antivirus You Can Get

- Recycle Bin claims it's empty, but it's actually not

By: Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

Antiviruses are surely some of the must-have software solutions these days when viruses are everywhere hunting for vulnerable computers and unprotected
systems. However, there are cases when up-to-date antivirus can prove to be useless. And no, I'm not talking about the cases when an antivirus manufacturer didn't integrate protection for an infection but about those Recycle Bin infections which are totally hidden of the users' eye.

In case you don't know what I am talking about, find out that there are some viruses/variants of malware which are hidden in Recycle Bin. What's interesting is actually the fact that even a user enters Recycle Bin, he can't see a thing and all he gets is actually a message informing that "there are no items in the Recycle Bin."

"Microsoft Windows Explorer might make things look nice and easy to do, yet its trickery is often well utilised by malware authors. Take for example your typical SillyFDC worm. During installation one of the places it will copy itself to is the Recycle bin; now most anti-virus products will happily detect it there, however if you’re hunting for an active infection you may be surprised to find the Recycle bin devoid of malware (despite it being there)!" Pete of Sophos explains on the security company's blog.

So, "how can we see the infection files?" you may ask. Well, the solution is easier than what you expected. All you need to do is to open Command Prompt, navigate to Recycle Bin, type "dir" and press enter. You should be able to see all the files hidden by the malware, which were actually hidden of the Windows GUI.

However, this doesn't reduce the need for powerful antivirus solutions because there are only a few infections which rely on Recycle Bin. So, keep your antivirus up-to-date and, in case you think that there may be something hidden in your Recycle Bin, don't forget to use the simple features Command Prompt has to offer.

MORE RELATED ARTICLES: Fake Anti-Spyware for Windows Reaches the Web The Ultimate Backdoor: Hackers Can Infect Your Processor Sued? Antivirus Update Required! Fake Japanese Government Email Drops Backdoor There's a New Yahoo Messenger Infection in Town Better Security for Yahoo Mail, POP3 Still Ignored
 
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17th April 2008, 12:54 GMT | Copyright (c) 2008 Softpedia | Contact:
Read by 993 user(s) | Rating: | 7 vote(s) so far | Cast your vote:
Sometimes, Command Prompt Is the Best Windows Antivirus You Can Get - USER OPINIONS

Comment #1 by Parixit on 2008-04-19, 09:11 GMT reply to this comment 
Well this is a lot interesting about this article. I had also used command prompt to view viruses hidden that could not been seen thru Windows Explorer. Try using the command DIR/AH instead of just DIR Command to view viruses. The Guy who brought this to highlight is a good genius i guess

Comment #2 by John Brynford-Jones on 2008-04-20, 04:31 GMT reply to this comment 
To actually get rid of it you could delete the recycling bin, there are many apps out there that let you delete files during boot just select the recycle bin folder on the C: drive and restart. Windows automatically restores the recycle bin during boot so don't worry.


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