Rootkits are a special kind of software tool used to hide trojans, viruses and other malware from your anti-virus scanner and other security products. Unfortunately there are extremely effective which means that some of you reading this will be infected even though you believe your PC to be totally clean. Thankfully there is a new class of security product now available called rootkit detectors that use specialized techniques to detect these dangerous intruders. Most of these detectors require quite a bit of technical skill to interpret the results but one of the simplest to use and most effective is also free. It’s called BlackLight and is currently available as a free beta from F-Secure until the 1st of October 2005. I suggest everyone download this product and scan their PC. The chances of you being infected are small but for five minutes work it’s not worth taking the risk.
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