Remove Registry Virus
There are many malware infections that target the Windows registry. The registry is just too good a target. It is hidden from the casual eye of the system user. It holds the vital commands that make your software, hardware, and your operating system work. And even if you were looking right at malware in the registry, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell it apart from the other lines of incomprehensible code in there. If you want to remove registry virus and other malware, you need to learn a bit about the threats first.
What is malware? Malware is any malicious software or code dropped on your pc without your permission, or without you really understanding what the software is. This includes everything from computer viruses that destroy your operating environment to adware that annoys the heck out of you with insistent popups.
Anti-malware and firewall, and registry cleaner software will help minimize the threats to your system.
Obviously, some malware is more threatening to your pc health than others.
Infectious Malware
Virus
A program that infects a software on your system, and when you run that software the virus spreads throughout your system. A virus can contain a “payload” that makes your system take actions – generally malicious. A virus is spread when you transmit the program, or any program file that contains code (like Macros), to someone else.
Worm
A program that works to infect other computers in network with the host pc with its malicious code. It may also have payload. Worms are designed to cut through security holes in your system, and then infect everyone else whose computer communicates with yours. It may not be carried by or specifically target a piece of software.
Concealed Malware
Trojan horses
Malware hidden inside or alongside a program the user wants to install. When you download an appealing (often free) program and install it, you might unwittingly be installing a trojan horse program as well. The trojan may attack your software like a virus does, or it may be spyware or crimeware.
Rootkits
Rootkits are concealment routines that are designed by hackers to prevent you and your anti-virus program from finding the hostile processes. If the malware infection your pc caught has rootkit, it can be especially hard to remove completely from your system and the malware may simply regenerate from behind the concealment processes of rootkit.
Backdoors
A way for a malware program or unauthorized user to access your system. Sometimes malware’s purpose is to create a backdoor for an Internet criminal to access your pc – either to steal your personal information or to use your pc as a platform for spam or worse.
Data-stealing Malware (The Rising Threat)
Spyware
This is a program made for the purpose of getting information about you. Whether the creator wants to push you toward some action (like buying something) or wants to get your credit card number or passwords, spyware is rapidly becoming the #1 threat in the malware world. Some suspect that there is more malware – mostly spyware – being produced then legitimate software (“Symantec Internet Security Threat Report: Trends for July-December 2007 (Executive Summary)” Symantec Corp.. April 2008. p. 29. View report here.)
Dishonest Adware/Scareware
This is a program that wants to influence you toward making a purchase. If you get a “free” anti-virus, or a “free” registry cleaner, you may find yourself bombarded with frightening popups that warn you of major threats to your system that can only be cured when you upgrade to the paid version of the software. The worst of these types of malware may actually cause real damage to your system to force you into a purchase.
NOTE: Malware is not software with a defect. For example, when your Visual Basic V.6 starts throwing a runtime 429 error that is annoying, yes. And some application updates have been known to lock your system up completely in black screens of death, right? But it is not malware. It is just software with a bug that is interrupting your system function.
So many of the modern malware infections are designed to attack the Windows registry. Here’s a short list of registy threats I found in browsing around the ‘Net for about a minute. These are just a handful of the malware infections that are known to pollute your registry with .exe and dll files:
- bloodhound spyware
- about:blank virus
- W32 spybot virus
- win32
- trojan downloaders
- mslti32
- x-bot
- sp
- funwebA trojan
To remove registry viruses like these, set your anti-virus to FULL SCAN so that it looks into the registry. Many anti-virus scans don’t look into those core system files unless you specify. The full scan will also look into the temporary files in your web cache which is another place malware likes to hide. The full scan takes a long time to run, so you should just walk away from the pc and let that scan run. 
It is a good idea to follow up on the anti-virus scan with a registry cleaner. Registry cleaners are designed to identify registry values that are alien and to give you the option of removing those keys or subkeys. Also, a registry cleaner can repair or re-register damaged dll files (the vital how-to instructions contained in your registry) and fix pathways corrupted by malware infections.
How will you know if a registry entry is from malware? Generally, the entry will contain the name of the malware: bloodhound.exe or win32.exe for example. In order to remove registry virus completely, you would delete those entries.
So when the registry cleaner presents you with the list of files it does not recognize and asks if you want to delete an item, take a moment to Google the file names in order to find out if they are malware files. For example, a file called mslti32.exe is a file from the mslti32 infection. You would definitely want to delete that to remove registry virus.
All the good registry cleaners will allow you to backup the registry before you make any changes in case you make a mistake. But you’ll be able to find the malware names pretty easily if you do the Google research. Then remove those files from your registry in order to eliminate the chance of reinfection by the malware.
If you don’t have an awesome anti-virus, a good firewall, and a trusted registry cleaner, you need them. ASAP!!! You can get a complimentary diagnostic scan of your pc registry by clicking on the button below right now.
Remove registry virus threats today.
