I have an odd situation on my hands. Basically, out of idiocy, I downloaded a keylogger disguised as a "Windows Media plugin" file. Running the file did nothing at first glance, but shortly after I had learned that I have fell victim to a common World of Warcraft account theft scheme. I quickly ran Hijackthis and got the log analyzed at hijackthis.de. It detected that csrss.exe was running outside of C:\Windows\System32. Instead, it was running out of a Temp folder. (Forgot the exact address.) I quickly reacted by opening up Task Manager, clicking on one of the csrss.exe, and clicking End Process.
.....It turned out to be the legitimate one. I had crashed the computer.
Now here's where it gets odd. After rebooting the computer, the fake csrss.exe was gone. No traces of it whatsoever. A search found a prefetch file for it, but it's gone. I have ran Spybot, Malware Bytes, Avira Antivirus, a-Squared, and AdAware, but they pick up nothing. Not even when ran in Safe Mode. TrendMicro and Pandascan online scans have picked up nothing as well. Not even Hijackthis is picking it up anymore. I have constantly checked Task Manager, but I have yet to see the second csrss.exe. And seeing how my WoW account is still safe. It has been long enough for someone to log on and swipe my gold by now, although I haven't entered any personal information before I crashed the computer, I have since then logged on after it apparently disappeared.
I even attempted an experiment on another computer with Windows XP 32-bit. (This one has Vista 32-bit.) I updated all anti-virus/spyware programs, downloaded the "Windows Media plugin", and then turned off the modem. Sure enough, there was a fake csrss.exe, this time located in C:\Documents and Settings\(username\Temp.
a-Squared, Spybot, and Avast failed to detect it, Hijackthis detected it but I didn't use HJT to remove it yet. Malware Bytes DID detect it, deleted it, and prompted me to restart the computer. But after restarting, there was not one, but TWO fake csrss.exes! And this time it got a bit more clever, it was now found in C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\My Documents\System.
This time, I used Hijackthis, removed two keys related to it, linking to that directory, and it shut them down. I reran Malware Bytes and it didn't detect it this time, even though the .exe file was still there, I just deleted it the old fashioned way at that point. Apparently that took care of it.
Here's what I learned:
-Malware Bytes detected it when it was active.
-Under properties, it lists itself as a "Windows Help File" as opposed to the real csrss.exe's "Client Server Runtime Process".
-It managed to replicate its self when Malware Bytes tried to delete it, but when I deleted it manually, it appears to be gone.
Perhaps it wasn't the most sophisticated keylogger. However, it didn't exactly tell me whether my main computer is safe or not.
So basically, I'm really confused here. Could a keylogger REALLY have just been deleted by crashing the computer while everything else is apparently in tact? Am I safe? Anything else I should try to do?
.....It turned out to be the legitimate one. I had crashed the computer.
Now here's where it gets odd. After rebooting the computer, the fake csrss.exe was gone. No traces of it whatsoever. A search found a prefetch file for it, but it's gone. I have ran Spybot, Malware Bytes, Avira Antivirus, a-Squared, and AdAware, but they pick up nothing. Not even when ran in Safe Mode. TrendMicro and Pandascan online scans have picked up nothing as well. Not even Hijackthis is picking it up anymore. I have constantly checked Task Manager, but I have yet to see the second csrss.exe. And seeing how my WoW account is still safe. It has been long enough for someone to log on and swipe my gold by now, although I haven't entered any personal information before I crashed the computer, I have since then logged on after it apparently disappeared.
I even attempted an experiment on another computer with Windows XP 32-bit. (This one has Vista 32-bit.) I updated all anti-virus/spyware programs, downloaded the "Windows Media plugin", and then turned off the modem. Sure enough, there was a fake csrss.exe, this time located in C:\Documents and Settings\(username\Temp.
a-Squared, Spybot, and Avast failed to detect it, Hijackthis detected it but I didn't use HJT to remove it yet. Malware Bytes DID detect it, deleted it, and prompted me to restart the computer. But after restarting, there was not one, but TWO fake csrss.exes! And this time it got a bit more clever, it was now found in C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\My Documents\System.
This time, I used Hijackthis, removed two keys related to it, linking to that directory, and it shut them down. I reran Malware Bytes and it didn't detect it this time, even though the .exe file was still there, I just deleted it the old fashioned way at that point. Apparently that took care of it.
Here's what I learned:
-Malware Bytes detected it when it was active.
-Under properties, it lists itself as a "Windows Help File" as opposed to the real csrss.exe's "Client Server Runtime Process".
-It managed to replicate its self when Malware Bytes tried to delete it, but when I deleted it manually, it appears to be gone.
Perhaps it wasn't the most sophisticated keylogger. However, it didn't exactly tell me whether my main computer is safe or not.
So basically, I'm really confused here. Could a keylogger REALLY have just been deleted by crashing the computer while everything else is apparently in tact? Am I safe? Anything else I should try to do?