Monday, July 23, 2007

Microsoft Malware Removal Starter Kit

I came across this "Microsoft Malware Removal Starter Kit" Friday evening. I don' remember where I saw it, now, but it was released on July 10 and didn't get any recognition in any of the blogs that I frequent.

Basically, they've put together instructions for what I had created while at a previous position here at UF. The HelpDesk for our dept needed a way to do offline scanning and no one was capable of using a Linux Live boot CD to run ClavAV, so I created a disk with BartPE and included several useful tools such as a registry editor and CLI version of McAfee VirusScan.

While BartPE bordered on being a violation of MS' EULA, it never became a target of MS for a takedown. It's interesting that MS has now decided to leverage their WinPE for doing malware removal. Sure, they leave it up to the user to create the disk and add the tools, but they have a brain dead guide on how to do it. Maybe someone at MS said, "Hey, we use this WinPE thingie for creating images for deploying via WDS and installing Windows. I bet we could add more tools and make it even more useful." Well, they probably didn't say that, but I'm glad they didn't say something like, "How can we charge for this!"

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