Trojan found

cacti

In my last scan Mcafee found the GenericExploit!pnt trojan. The report said it had been quarantined. Is this the same as got rid of?; and is the computer completely secure now? I am not techy minded and would not know how to remove it myself. Thanks for any help.

waddler_8

Yes, you're safe with it removed to quarantine.

Clear the Java cache & make sure you have the latest version of Java installed, removing old versions.

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/plugin_cache.xml
http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

Run a quick scan with the free version of malwarebytes.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free
(mbam--setup-1.60.1.1000.exe 9.06mb)

macman

And then get rid of the dire McAfee and use a decent free AV program such as Avast, Avira or MSE.

cacti

Thanks Waddler! I think I have done it.

waddler_8

cacti wrote: »

The report said it had been quarantined. Is this the same as got rid of?; and is the computer completely secure now?

Just expand a bit on what quarantining means in relation to files detect by your antivirus; When files are quarantined by antivirus software they are generally moved/copied from their original location to a folder managed by the antivirus program.

The files are usually encrypted and/or renamed and/or password protected so they can't be run or interact with the system in any way. Therefore files placed in quarantine can't harm your computer, you can safely leave them there for a while. If they are indeed malware then they can be deleted for good from quarantine.

If they turned out to be a false positive, then they can be restored to their original location, with the AV reversing whatever it did to the file to render it harmless (unencrypt it, give it it's original name etc).