Need a USB-powered Linux Anti-Virus

[Zambini]

Whats the best one? My mom's compy got pwned by foreign exchange students and I need to fix it. Its nothing but virus-porn and nasty shit, so I figure that running via Ubuntu LiveCD + Some sort of Antivirus on a USB.

Or is it pre-installed in the LiveCD

What do yall suggest?

[screwballl]

If it is linux (especially a liveCD) then it doesn't need anti-virus... but if you want to use it to clean up the system and scan the hard drive, ClamAV is an open source antivirus although I do not know how well it works.

[drew and not u]

I think he's saying it's a windows PC and he wants to run the AV from a linux live CD.

[JazzyJake]

Originally Posted by drew and not u

I think he's saying it's a windows PC and he wants to run the AV from a linux live CD.

If that's the case, I suggest getting a program called Avast!
It has a boot time scan feature that will scan for virii before windows starts and they have a chance to hide
It works wonders

[screwballl]

doing some digging, there is a helix livecd but the last update was almost a year ago...

Helix - Incident Response & Computer Forensics Live CD by e-fense™, Inc.

Also, In Knoppix 5.1, you can boot from the Knoppix CD and install F-Prot with the Synaptic Package Manager. If that doesn't work, you can get it straight to the source, from F-Prot: Download F-PROT Antivirus for Linux Workstations.
More info here, only a few months old.

Also I believe BartPE can be used to boot from CD or USB thumb drive and you can include some virus scanning tools from there during the image building process (plugins button shows McAfee virus scan stuff).

Originally Posted by JazzyJake

If that's the case, I suggest getting a program called Avast!
It has a boot time scan feature that will scan for virii before windows starts and they have a chance to hide
It works wonders

NOOOOO that AV program is weak.
Look at the comparative and retrospective tests at AV-Comparatives under the comparatives are to the left. Avast gets 97.6% on the comparative and 28% on the retrospective. By comparison, Avira gets 99.6% and 72%, respectively. This site does not allow copying or pasting anything from their site nor linking to any results page, only their home page. So thats what I did

[Zambini]

Yea, I'm gonna try and heal it via Linux-powered AntiVirus. So a yay or nay on Avast?

I wanna do this as simply as possible.

[Lead Head]

While avast may not be the best anti virus, the boot up scan should get enough stuff off so that you can get the system working well enough to install another anti virus

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by Lead Head

While avast may not be the best anti virus, the boot up scan should get enough stuff off so that you can get the system working well enough to install another anti virus

but in order to get to it, you need to boot into windows and install it... if windows is borked, any .exe file that gets on the system may turn into an immediate virus, depending on the infection.
It may help to boot into safe mode and try to install it there...

[Lead Head]

Originally Posted by screwballl

but in order to get to it, you need to boot into windows and install it... if windows is borked, any .exe file that gets on the system may turn into an immediate virus, depending on the infection.
It may help to boot into safe mode and try to install it there...

That doesn't really make any sense, I've never had that happen before, even on a system that was so virus gunked up that it would BSOD and shut down every other boot.

[Zambini]

Sounds like a plan :D

I'll be fixing that compy sometime within the week. My mom's craptop is like 800mhz...