Windows 10: Wacatac trojan how can I make sure it's gone?

Upon downloading a compressed archive, I received a notification claiming that win32/wacatac.b!lm was a threat. When I tried to remove it via windows defender it was unsuccessful. The second time though, windows defender claimed to have successfully removed the virus. However, upon searching about the trojan on the internet, I doubted that it was gone. The only files affected were cache files from Google chrome. I tried the following:Running a full scan with windows defender: no threats found. Running a scan with malwarebytes: no threats found. Running a scan with Microsoft safety scanner: no

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Removing Wacatac trojan - Windows 10

Running Windows 10 on a Dell XPS8940 desktop with a 512GB SSD for the C: drive and a 1TB HDD for the D: drive.

On 4/15/2023, Windows Defender detected the Wacatac trojan. It reported a "severe" threat. I clicked on the box to perform the recommended actions, but Defender did not report that the item was removed or quarantined. I tried both.

I looked at the details of that Defender showed and deleted all of the affected files. They were all in an AppData directory that was not the current AppData; the directories were part of data I had copied onto the XPS8940 from my prior desktop. So I deleted all of the listed files. I believe I deleted all of the files listed by Defender, but guess it's always possible that there are other infected files.

Defender continued to report the wacatac trojan. Having read on here that this virus can add a lot of registry entries, etc. I did a system restore to the one available restore point from 4/13/2023. That was successful.

Then at some point, D: drive started behaving slowly. Windows Explorer ran very slow and when i tried to deleted some unnecessary folders, it was very slow. I could delete a single file successfully.

I ran malwarebytes and it reported no threats.

I ran iobit and it reported no threats.

The problems with the D: drive started affecting the boot process. I would just get the black screen with the large "Dell" logo and the spinning circle of white dots, that would go on for 15 minutes or more. Sometimes it would say "Press any key in the next 8 seconds to stop checking..." The first couple times i did that, it went to the sign-in screen and the PC seemed to be operating OK (it boots off the SSD). But it got to the point that it was nearly impossible to boot up.

So I opened up the PC and disconnected the cables to the D: drive. Then it booted up as normal (pretty fast). Then i ran:

- Windows Defender - still reports the wacatac trojan

- Malwarebytes - no threats reported

- Windows Safety Scanner - ran successfully and the log reports no threats.

QUESTION 1:

At this point, can I be confident the wacatac trojan is no longer a threat?

QUESTION 2:

How do I fix the D: drive? If I reconnect it, I suspect it is going to interfere with the boot process again. There is data on that HDD I don't want to lose. I was thinking perhaps i could remove it from the PC and put it in a housing with a USB connection. Then after boot-up, I could scan it with Windows Safety Scanner, Defender and Malwarebytes. Then try to run chkdsk? Or perhaps some drivers are damaged?

Should I consider installing a new HDD in the PC and just try to copy the data off the old one?

QUESTION 3:

Should i upgrade to Windows 11? Seems like i should sort out the D: drive issue first.

Thanks in advance for any wisdom you can provide.

Brian

 

i downloaded a wacatac trojan can i restore the data with data recover

Your best bet is to do a format and clean install then change all your password banking etc as its main perpose is to collect data Wacatac Trojan - Malware removal instructions (updated)

 

i downloaded a wacatac trojan can i restore the data with data recover

i got a wacatac trojan with no updates i did not delete data lost?