OSCOT

Symantec announced yesterday a new rootkit found attacking the MBR (master boot record) in Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2000.  This rootkit overwrites the Master Boot Record of the hard disk and uses rootkit techniques to hide itself.  If you become infected, the only way to clean out the infection is to unfortunately wipe your pc’s hard drive clean and start over.  There are some preventative measures that can be taken, however.  The first is making sure you have proper anti-virus and anti-rootkit protection.  AVG offers some great products that can help you accomplish this task free, easily, and efficiently.  Another preventative measure is to verify if your pc’s BIOS has a “MBR write-protection” feature.  If the feature is available, the best mode of protection is to enable it.  Just remember that if you need re-install Windows for any other reason, you have to disable it in order to do so.

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