Larissa Virus??

[boeingbus2002]

Hi
A friend of mine has been trying to run an AVG scan recently but cannot get it to work.
I tried to scan using other AV programs like Stinger and Norton AV 2003 (which has not been updated), however these programs also fail to get started.
I tired to get this forum up on her pc to get the Trend Micro site or other online AV services or look up if others had this problem, however any page which refers to Anti Viruses fails to load.
On startup an obcene message on notepad loads mentioning Larissa and its trying to load an image which it cannot find.
Anyone got any ideas on how to fix it?
Once its clear I will install Adaware and Spybot and ZoneAlarms as she has neither of these products. At the moment she is running a Dell PC with XP and Tiscali BBand.

Cheers

[ORAC]

Symantec security response (http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.serflog.removal.tool.html)

[boeingbus2002]

Genius,
Many thanks ORAC. I did try a search for Larissa, but obviously this explains why it didnt find anything.
It seems to be spread through messenger or shared files. Would installing ZoneAlarm and the SpyWare programs along with latest AVG be an effective barrier for the future?

Also how did they receive it, was it a file which was sent and then accepted or just passed automatically without the users knowledge? Many thanks one again

[ORAC]

Sent as a file or link in Messenger or over a LAN, has to be clicked to open it. It can also copy itself to CD-Rs. An up to date AV should find and remove it. e.g. McAfee (http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_132209.htm) say "Use current engine and DAT files for detection and removal".