Pain and Suffering from a Virus

One of my three PC's has a virus that I can not get cleaned up. The symtoms are that the PC slows down at times because the virus is taking screen shots and it maybe key stroke logging... My virus protection and Spybot 1.3 software is not picking it up. I do know it is a variant of the Matrix virus that replaces the WinSock32.dll and interferes with the virus protection software.

Anyway, I unplugged this computer from my network until I can rebuild it from scratch. Disconnecting the network cable from the PC will isolated it from the rest of the world just incase it was a trojan version of the virus.

It is recommended by several websites that rebuilding the PC is the only sure way to recover. Which brings me to a point. Don't take extreme actions without getting a second opinion. Use others that are proven and trustworthy as a sounding board before you do major changes to your PC. It will save you time and help with any PC headaches.

How did I get the virus? Well, someone (one of the kids) did not adhere to their dad's warnings about visiting and downloading 'non approved' games from 'non approved' websites or they opened an email that was 'cool' or 'important'. Regardless, the kids will lose all of their install games and associated data. That is a big price to pay for kids that are gamers.