Troubleshooting with the Windows Sysinternals Tools

Chapter 20. Malware

Malware causes more than its fair share of computer problems. Of course, by definition it always performs actions that are not in your best interest. Sometimes it tries to do so quietly without your noticing its presence. Other times, it makes itself unavoidably obvious, such as with the scareware described in “The Case of the Winwebsec Scareware” and “The Case of the Process-Killing Malware” in this chapter. Like a lot of legitimate software, sometimes malware is just poorly written. Unlike most legitimate software, though, malware often actively tries to prevent its discovery or removal.

Here are the cases in this chapter:

Stuxnet is one of the most sophisticated malware attacks ever mounted. Here, the Sysinternals utilities ...