Rootkit Revealer Review - check for hiddent trojans

Rootkit Revealer

by Christopher G. Mendla
Jan 2006

Even the most secure systems can fall prey to hackers. The problem for a system administrator or consultant is that you cannot prove a negative. I cannot prove that there is not an invisible alien looking over my shoulder as I write this. Likewise, it is almost impossible to prove that a system has not been compromised by a hacker.

The recent news about Sony including a rootkit on commercial music CDs has shaken the computing world up somewhat.

Rootkits are tools that hackers, virus writers and spyware/adware purveyors use to hide their applications and data on your system. For the most part, you will not be able to see their files through normal means including dos and safe mode. However, there are tools that look at what is on your system and compare that to what is shown in the windows API. One of these tools it the Rootkit Revealer from www.sysinternals.com

The rootkit revealer comes as a small zipfile. You simply expand it and run the one executable. The interface is simple and there aren't many options. A scan of about 75 GB took a couple of hours. The results can be a little ambiguous with some level of false positives. You need to be fairly advanced to interpret some of the results.

If a system is relatively clean, i.e. free from some of the more malicious spyware and adware, then you will have an easier time diagnosing your system based on the results.

Tips

Clean your system up as best as you can with regard to spyware, adware and virus activity.

You can work when Rootkit Revealer is running but you will get cleaner results when you aren't using the machine.

Summary

Tools such as Rootkit Revealer are critical to have when battling the world of virii, spyware and adware.

More Security:

Miscellaneous Tips:

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