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IDE driver changes name at every boot. Virus ?

Hello,

Having some problems with my XP SP3 system, I have started investigating in depth the boot process.
I have the /BOOTLOG enabled for years on my system.
This logs some boot details in the %windir%/ntbtlog.txt file.
I therefore started to look if I couldnt find any weird driver name in that file.
I actually found one :
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\ausdht7g.SYS
I looked in my system32/drivers directory for the file but didn't find it.
I therefore looked more deeply and found that this driver changes name at every reboot, since December 2006, date at which it started appearing.
Running DriverView from Nirsoft shows that the driver is loaded and is listed as IDE/ATAPI Port Driver, 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108), Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft® Windows® Operating System.

Here are the relevant lines from the ntbtlog.txt file, showing the names used for this driver :

+ egrep 'Service Pack|\\a.......\.SYS' ntbtlog3.txt
Service Pack 1 9 21 2004 23:37:59.375
Service Pack 1 9 21 2004 23:43:03.375
Service Pack 1 9 21 2004 23:55:11.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 10:37:54.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 12:12:25.359
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 14:16:00.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 14:50:32.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 14:55:32.359
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 15:07:57.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 15:14:52.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 15:19:52.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 15:37:17.375
Service Pack 1 9 22 2004 15:48:45.375
Service Pack 1 9 23 2004 00:54:29.375
Service Pack 1 9 23 2004 22:38:07.375
Service Pack 1 9 27 2004 19:47:06.375
Service Pack 1 9 30 2004 23:20:12.359
Service Pack 110 4 2004 19:50:22.375
......... removed lines ...................
Service Pack 111 30 2006 11:28:20.375
Service Pack 112 2 2006 13:38:25.375
Service Pack 112 2 2006 19:57:22.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\av8k5o1x.SYS
Service Pack 112 5 2006 09:04:56.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\abn1c3w1.SYS
Service Pack 112 8 2006 01:44:51.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\a3i8gtoc.SYS
Service Pack 112 8 2006 09:56:31.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\ai2p9vf3.SYS
Service Pack 112 10 2006 17:49:37.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\alk546a6.SYS
Service Pack 112 11 2006 07:48:15.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\ad7z7kj2.SYS
Service Pack 112 16 2006 14:19:10.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\appa9qnt.SYS
Service Pack 112 16 2006 14:22:06.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\akrh9cbk.SYS
Service Pack 112 16 2006 14:32:09.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\as4z7wv3.SYS
Service Pack 112 16 2006 15:53:29.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\a4kd3tp5.SYS
Service Pack 112 16 2006 16:19:45.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\aa093efi.SYS
Service Pack 112 18 2006 00:35:58.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\ayr26ro8.SYS
.......... removed lines ...................
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\awbvgwq8.SYS
Service Pack 311 16 2010 19:34:43.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\akuf1rvi.SYS
Service Pack 311 16 2010 20:35:10.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\axkel46g.SYS
Service Pack 311 18 2010 14:54:04.375
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\a6z2qu01.SYS
Service Pack 311 19 2010 01:03:38.359
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\ausdht7g.SYS

Of course I ran a full scan of my C drive and no virus was found.
I tried to find any weird program which would have been installed at that date, but didn't see anything weird.

Any idea where this strange behaviour is coming from ?

Thanks in advance.

Michel

dbrunton

Run the following anti-virus utils one at at time and see what they find.

MalwareBytes:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam-download.php

HitmanPro:
http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro

TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/downloads/utils/tdsskiller.zip

ComboFix:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix

michelhans

ASKER

Ran TDSSKiller, which only pointed to sptd.sys, which is the Alcohol 120% Virtual CD driver. I removed it temporarily.
Note that in the report, TDSS did not list the questionnable driver, although it is listed in the registry.

Running Malware.

michelhans

ASKER

Hitman pro and MalwareBytes done, with no significant discovery. Will reboot anyway for the small changes. Note that Combofix requires Antivirus to be uninstalled, which I do not want to do.
Will keep posted.

dbrunton

What anti-virus are you running?

I'm just wondering if this is an anti-virus file.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

dbrunton

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SOLUTION

Tolomir

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michelhans

ASKER

Ok. So, this is explained. No threat there. I downloaded the latest version of Alcohol and reinstalled.

@tolomir : I actually contacted Alcohol Soft and they confirmed it is to fool the copyright protections.

@dbrunton : The antivirus I'm running is McAfee Enterprise 8.5i.

I'm surprised that none of the 3 malware detectors noticed the 'hidden' driver.

Thanks all for your help.