Rootkits?

[Doug]

On 02/18/2013 12:14 PM, Bill Stanley wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I don't really have a problem yet so this is more of a question. If a 
> dual boot computer using Windows and Linux gets a rootkit installed 
> while using Windows, will Linux be affected?  Lots of what is called 
> rootkits are not one but just garden variety Windows viruses that are 
> very good at hiding.  What I am talking about are true rootkits.
>
> The second question is if you are confronted by such a beast and the 
> hard drive is suspect, can the rootkit be eliminated?  I am thinking 
> that you could boot to a Live CD and use a tool such as gparted to 
> repartition and preferably overwrite EVERY byte in the hard drive 
> (including the boot sector).  Would you get rid of the rootkit that way?
>
>
> Bill Stanley
>
If you really want to clean the hard drive, get a program that runs off 
a self-booting CD and writes all zeros to the drive. Nothing else, even 
formatting,
is guaranteed to get rid of data on the drive. Probably would be best if 
you download the program from another computer--preferably a Linux 
system, which is much less susceptible to malware.

--doug