As I write, the A-H1N1 virus is spreading around the world. The Swine Flu arrived here in Maine today with a small number of recorded cases. As this news reached me, I was struggling with another type of virus. This one was Win32/Cryptor, and it was wreaking havoc with my trusty Windows XP PC.
The insidious aspect of Win32/Cryptor is that it's seemingly benign. In fact, if you don't scan for it, you'll probably not know it's there, but an astute PC user may see some OS quirks from time to time. One of the obvious things Win32/Cryptor does is completely prohibit the operation of anti-spyware programs such as Spybot Search And Destroy.
Any way you cut it, Win32/Cryptor is a nasty piece of unwanted code. It restricts Windows functions and permits the installation of other, potentially more dangerous, malware onto a machine.
When I performed my daily routine AVG scan and discovered a half dozen instances of Cryptor I was heartsick. Prior to this invasion, my PC has been clean and flawless in operation for quite a few years.
Countless Frustrating Hours
After spending hours and hours searching the Web for answers to this problem, and trying various anti-malware applications (none of which would install or load as long as Cryptor was present), I met Ganesh.
Ganesh is employed by Microsoft. Working out of a southern city in India, he responded to my urgent telephone call to Microsoft's Safety Center 800 line.
I was skeptical. Previous experiences with Indian call center personnel were less than satisfactory. My mind conjured up images depicted in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. But Ganesh was articulate, knowledgeable, and reassuring. He insisted, "As a team we will remove this virus from your machine."
I had no choice but to trust him. After all, this was Official Microsoft I was talking with, and I didn't have to wait 45 minutes listening to insipid music to get through to him.
Working methodically, Ganesh restarted my PC in Safe Mode, and directed its browser to Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner. I disconnected my router/firewall, and Ganesh fired up LiveMeeting so he could operate my PC from his machine in India.
Over the course of the next hour we worked together. Sometimes he would direct the cursor; and ask that I click on a particular button locally. While we waited for an operation to ensue we chatted a bit about the weather.
Getting back to work, I noticed Ganesh used phonetics, such as "George" if he was requesting that I poke in the letter G into a code window. I mentioned the International Phonetic Alphabet to him, and before long we were talking about flying, aviators, and ham radio operators, all of whom routinely use codes such as Bravo for B and Zulu for Z. It was a lot of fun chatting about this with Ganesh.
As Tom Friedman says in his books, "the world is flat – and getting flatter." The fact that the Swine Flu is spreading as rapidly as it is, is mute testimony to the efficacy and downside of air travel today. On the flip side of the flat-world coin, it’s a 21st century pleasure to work in real-time across the Web with a responsive friend on the other side of the world. Thank you, Ganesh. My PC is running flawlessly again.
