Matt’s Cuppa Tech Tip: Detect Malware with HiJackThis

telecommatt | June 28, 2008

Unfortunately, it’s no longer good enough to have antivirus software installed on your PC, even if it’s up to date. There is little guarantee that the next website you visit won’t shove some little malware pill down your computers throat. (Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but still…)

Free utility HiJackThis is one of the best ways to tell if you’ve been, well, hijacked. The bad news is that you need a degree in computer science to know what to do with the results. The good news is that the websites below, which were probably written by people with degrees in computer science, can tell you what you need to know about your HiJackThis log file and they’ll do it for free.

clipped from www.techsupportalert.com

1.3 Easy Way to Detect
Infections

In
the editorial column in issue #157, I suggested that
you submit a HiJackThis log of your computer to free
security forums to identify possible malware
infections. Several users wrote in to say that many
forums no longer provide this service. Here’s an
alternative that’s quicker and simpler, though not
quite as accurate: Use a web service that will analyze
your HiJackThis log using an automated technique. I
know of two such services. All you have to do is paste
your HJT log to the website and the results come back
within seconds. Of the two sites, I found the analysis
from the first site more informative.
http://www.hijackthis.de
http://hjt.networktechs.com/