Worm on disc

Ganthan · Post by **Ganthan** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 5:26 pm

Now this is something I've never seen before and indeed didn't even know could happen. My AVG kept blocking a worm whenever I tried playing NVN2 and when I eventually ran an extension test on the disc itself it spotted the worm! I thought CD ROMs were read only, how did a worm end up on it? Furthermore, why is this happening now and not when I first installed it yesterday? Yes, I've only had this game for a day now and am kinda pissed that it somehow got corrupted already.

Don't fret because when I ran an AVG test on my computer everything checked out okay. It only showed up when I ran the extension test on the disc. Anybody know how I can deal with this?

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 6:06 pm

Turn off AVG. It's good, but it tends to get occasional false positives, which is true of many virus checkers.

Ganthan · Post by **Ganthan** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:16 pm

So you're saying that there actually isn't gonna be a problem at all if I just turn AVG off and let the disc run? Like most everyone else in the U.S.A. money is very tight with me right now and it isn't helped by having to pay a hefty sum in taxes this year so you'll understand how cautious I am about this.

Let me explain the situation a bit further. Yesterday I bought NWN2 but not the expansion (maybe I should have, it was right next to it). I installed, patched and played without any problems. Then when I got home from work today I tried playing it again and got the "Worm Detected" problems that kept coming up even after asking it to Heal things. Thinking maybe my game files got infected somehow I uninstalled NWN2 including the save games (I wasn't all that far into it, was probably a bad first character anyway). Then when I tried installing it again the "Worm Detected" problem came right back. I tried running a thorough scan of my machine with AVG and everything came back rosy. Then when I tried a shell extension on the disc the "Worm Detected" problem popped up.

So basically the game isn't even installed right now and I'm getting the "Worm Detected" right from the disc itself. Why is it doing that and is it safe to install it anyway?

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:43 pm

AVG is a decent free virus scanner, but it has one fundamental flaw. It decides that every single cookie-tracker is a bad thing. Cookie-Trackers, for a brief summary, is a small file that a lot of programs, if not all, put on your PC by the programs, that send information about your PC and that program correlation to the company who made said program. If you've ever seen a "Send Error Report" error running a program, that's one of a windows XP built in feature that allows a cookie-tracker to do it's thing.

Neverwinter nights 2, and just about any video game these days, uses this. This is mainly for errors in the game, or to give you information about upcoming patches, or contests or something.

Now, if you're almost positive it's not a cookie-tracker as I've described in any way, you should post the exact name, verbatim, of the "worm" in question. That'd be the most helpful to us for now. And don't worry, I understand how it is to not want to have your PC taken in for vast amounts of money for something that's potentially a small and easily fixable problem, especially when you can't afford to take it into a shop.

Ganthan · Post by **Ganthan** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:34 pm

I-Worm/Stration.GVE

That specifically is what pops up, and this happens with minimal prompting. I can't even get the install window open because this comes up. If I so much as put the disc in so it autoruns, this pops up.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:53 pm

Hmm, that I wasn't familiar with (until about two minutes ago). I doubt this came from the CD itself but more or less it was on your computer waiting for a specific file, which may have happened to BE on your CD to manifest itself. This is a Trojan, and the file on the CD that helped manifest the trojan is most likely a harmless game file, the Trojan was just looking for a piece of code or something (a lot of trojans go after CD drives, meaning it activates with a brutal virus depending on what you put in your CD drive). I would advise not running NWN 2 until this virus is gone with.

You should try some other virus-scanning programs that usually help. Spybot Search and Destroy, AdAware, TrenMicro, and Kapersky.

Ganthan · Post by **Ganthan** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 2:48 pm

Hmm, I just found another thread somebody made on another forum of other folks having this exact same problem: Neverwinter Nights: Threat Detected

This leads me to believe that this is in fact a false positive but it also means that I'm gonna have a hard time getting NWN2 running properly again because of this.

paul.spilsbury@ · Post by **paul.spilsbury@** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:50 am

Same problem...

I've had exactly the same problem as you. Same message, same worm. I can now play the game again; here's what I did:
I disconnected my modem cable, so I was no longer on the internet.
I exited AVG Control Centre.
I disabled Spyware terminator.
I disabled Comodo Firewall.
Then I uninstalled NWN2, then reinstalled it without updates.
Then I could play the game.
I turned back on all my security utils and reconnected to the internet.
I can still play the game.
If your game won't load/install from desktop icon, go to My Computer and do it from there.
I think the problem lies with on of the updates; perhaps updating them one at a time could trace the culprit, but I'm just happy to be able to play the game again!