

Clicking the “Fix Now!” button successfully deleted the files after a restart.

Using rootkit detection technology based on GMER, avast! ANTIROOTKIT only managed to detect All In One Keylogger while missing the other two driver-based rootkit keyloggers. This free and portable anti rootkit tool by avast! is outdated and no longer being maintained since 2008 because it has been integrated into their antivirus program but can still be downloaded directly from their server. Since antivirus software are far from being perfect in catching rootkits, we’ve put 15 dedicated anti-rootkit tools to the test and see if they are able to detect the 3 different keyloggers (All In One Keylogger, Invisible KeyLogger Stealth, Elite Keylogger) that uses rootkit technology which we have installed on our test system. Antivirus software was not much of a help either because the Stuxnet worm successfully stayed infected on the computers for years before it was discovered by VirusBlokAda, the developer of VBA32 antivirus software.

This is achieved through installing and loading kernel-mode drivers which can allow the malware to run with higher privileges.Īlthough 64-bit Windows operating systems are generally safe from rootkit infection because by default the operating system only accepts signed driver files, there were previous cases where legitimate digital certificates were stolen by hackers and used to sign rootkit drivers to bypass security software and Windows defenses.

Rootkit technology is able to hide its presence from the most basic tools built into Windows such as Task Manager, to your most trusted firewall or antivirus software and you won’t even know that it’s there. There are many different types of computer malware and the ones that use rootkit technologies are the worst because they are hardest to detect and remove.
