Question

Possible virus--thumbcache?

Asked by: MarkUAIT

I've had a machine that's been badly infected, and have reformatted it.  The user had a Kingston thumbdrive on it, which scans (through S&D, MalwareBytes, Trend) clean.  However, there's an entry in autorun.inf that I don't understand--it's calling for bootex\thumbcache_131.exe to be opened.  I can't find that on the drive, but I do find a hidden directory called bootex.  Even more strange, this directory shows an icon from the recycle bin.  Are there problems lurking on this thumbdrive?  Is there any issue if I delete the autorun.inf file and the bootex directory?

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Asked On
2009-08-27 at 12:14:26ID24687780
Tags

virus thumbdrive kingston

Topics

Internet Security

,

Anti-Virus Applications

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: vikingtechnologiesPosted on 2009-08-27 at 23:41:16ID: 25205414

You can modify the autorun.ini and delete the line that refers to bootex\thumbcache_131.exe and then the directory bootex. bootex\thumbcache_131.exe is definitely a virus.

 

by: MarkUAITPosted on 2009-09-16 at 10:48:42ID: 25348174

Just curious if anyone else has  been seeing this virus since I originally posted.  It really turned out to be very nasty, posting questions about internet security, etc.  The virus is well known and I believe part of Conflicker.  Two things I didn't realize--one that it bypassed all the virus software we had--both Trend home and Trend enterprise--on machines that became infected.  Second, how it was spread.  I reformatted one machine, and within about 15 minutes the virus reappeared.  The only thing I had done was put in a thumb drive with some files from the original machine.  Nothing was executed, no documents were accessed, but the virus reappeared, even though the thumb drive scanned clean.  Apparently thumbdrives will execute an autorun file when inserted, and it's difficult to turn this setting off in XP.  Most people don't even realize that thumbdrives will auto execute something, so they haven't looked to turn that setting off.  As soon as the thumb drive was inserted into the machine, boom the virus ran and reinfected the newly formatted machine.  I had no idea anything had run, and it really fooled me.  It's definitely something to be aware of and look out for!

 

by: MarkUAITPosted on 2009-10-01 at 03:54:10ID: 31621401

Thanks for the suggestion.  This does get the virus off if it hasn't infected the particular machine, but if the machine is already infected--even if you start in safe mode--the directory can't be deleted.  The only solution I found unfortunately was to reformat.

 

by: kansashunterPosted on 2009-12-02 at 11:59:36ID: 25955829

MarkUAIT,
I just ran across the same problem after wiping off windows 7 and install xp, all drivers, updates, and software on basically a new computer.  I had delivered it last week and the banking software wouldn't work with 7.  Anyway, after moving all their files back, I plugged in my flash drive to install a couple more programs and boom.  All of a sudden it was infected.  I wiped it off again and finished about 2 this morning and then did a virus scan on the flash drive.  AVG free found the thumbcache_131.exe.  It also infected our networked backup drive.  I have plugged this drive into many computers with different av programs without any picking up the virus.  Now, I will reformat the drive every monday morning.

 

by: MarkUAITPosted on 2009-12-02 at 12:45:19ID: 25956308

Thanks for updating the thread.  I'm really surprised there's not much more about this.  It's a very nasty bug!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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