she got hit with a virus. don't confused the kids on here. they don't know the difference between an anti-virus scanner and a spyware scanner. they think the spyware scanner gets viruses and the anti-virus scanner gets spyware. some av applications catch spyware, however in my experience, i left that to giant antispyware, now MS antispyware.


read this. it explains everything.

Quoted from Wikipedia

The key distinction between a computer virus and a root kit relates to propagation. Like a root kit a computer virus modifies core software components of the system, inserting code which attempts to hide the "infection" and provides some additional feature or service to the attacker (the "payload" of a virus).

In the case of the root kit the payload may attempt to maintain the integrity of the root kit (the compromise to the system) --- for example every time one runs the root kit's ps command it may check the copies of init and inetd on the system to ensure that they are still compromised, and "re-infecting" them as necessary. The rest of the payload is there to ensure that the cracker (attacker) can continue to control the system. This generally involves having backdoors in the form of hard-coded username/password pairs, hidden command-line switches or magic environment variable settings which subvert the normal access control policies of the uncompromised versions of the programs. Some root kits may add port knocking checks to existing network daemons (services) such as inetd or the sshd

A computer virus can have any sort of payload. However, the computer virus also attempts to spread to other systems. In general a root kit limits itself to maintaining control of one system.

A program or suite of programs that attempts to automatically scan a network for vulnerable systems and to automatically exploit those vulnerabilities and compromise those systems is referred to as a computer worm. Other forms of computer worms work more passively, sniffing for usernames and passwords and using those to compromise accounts, installing copies of themselves into each such account (and usually relaying the compromise account information back to the cracker/attacker through some sort of covert channel.

Of course there are hybrids. A worm can install a root kit, and a root kit might include copies of one or more worms, packet sniffers or port scanners. Also many of the e-mail worms to which MS Windows platforms are uniquely vulnerable are commonly referred to as "viruses." So all of these terms have somewhat overlapping usage and can be easily conflated