itself when the system restarts.

Symptoms of Rootkit Infection

As discussed earlier, rootkits are extremely difficult to detect and remove. But, there can be a number of symptoms which may indicate a rootkit infection:

• The computer fails to respond to any inputs from the mouse or keyboard and locks up often.
• System settings can change suspiciously without knowledge. For example, the screensaver may be changed, or the taskbar may hide itself.
• Network access becomes very slow without any other known reason. This may indicate that data has been exfiltrated from the system to the attackers.

How to detect and remove rootkits?

There are a number of security tools that can detect and remove quite a number of rootkits if used as per the instructions. A number of such rootkit removal tools are:

• F-Secure Blacklight
• RootkitRevealer
• Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
• ProcessGuard
• Rootkit Hunter (How to remove rootkits with rkhunter?)
• Sophos Anti-Rootkit
• Rootkit Hook Analyzer
• VICE
• RAIDE
• chkrootkit (How to detect rootkits with chkrootkit?)

While removing a rootkit from a system, please read the current instructions of the rootkit detection and removal tool and follow the steps required before, during, or after the removal. Once the rootkit is removed, restart the system and scan again to make sure it has not reinstalled itself. If nothing works, repartition, reformat, and reinstall the system. It is cumbersome, but it works.

Security Fundamentals Practice Tests

The Security Fundamentals Practice Tests test one’s fundamental knowledge of cyber security. They are good for those preparing for various certification exams, such as the CCNA, CCNP, or CompTIA, and for students and IT/security professionals who want to improve their understanding of cybersecurity.