McAfee AVERT Stinger: A Lean, Mean Virus-Killing Machine Fine-Tuned Virus Detection and Removal Adam Stone
Most antivirus tools take a buckshot approach, scattering a defensive wave of blocks and fixes intended to swarm over incoming data and hunt down every potential ugly.
That's good for protecting your system from most viruses and other types of malware, but what about the bad stuff that get through? For those you need a fine-tuned rifle.
That's what McAfee AVERT Stinger is all about. Rather than attempting to comprehensively cover every threat and danger out there, this standalone utility is designed to target and remove specific viruses. It doesn't replace a full anti-virus protection tool, but rather assists users in cleaning infected systems.
Its lean, mean profile and freeware status makes it an ideal tool for network admins and users with systems known to be infected by a virus (or viruses).
It also comes in handy for helping out your friends and neighbors when their systems get the virus bug — just add it to your USB drive and you'll have it whenever duty calls (just remember to keep it updated with the latest upgrades).
Stinger currently detects more than 50 viruses, Trojans, and variants. For the technically minded among us, these include such nasties as Sober, Mydoom, Zobot, HideWindow, BackDoor-AQJ, PWS-Sincom.dll, and NTServiceLoader.
McAfee also adds detection updates for the latest and most widespread threats on a regular basis, and recommends users download a fresh version of the free software periodically in order to stay current. A "List Viruses" button within the main program displays an up-to-date catalog of the viruses that Stinger can detect and remove.
Stinger is part of McAfee's larger AVERT (Anti Virus Emergency Response Team) suite of utilities, a collection headed up by WebImmune. Touted as the world's first Internet virus security scanner that resides on the web, WebImmune gives users the opportunity to submit potentially infected files and receive information about solutions and real-time fixes, if required.
As the latest addition to the suite, Stinger brings to the table the user-friendliness most users have come to expect. Simply download, run, click "Scan Now," and you're up and running. Users can choose an action to perform if a virus is detected (delete, prompt, quarantine, or rename) and can also configure which types of files to scan.
