“So, you didn’t patch the system and it got hacked. What to do? Well, let’s see: You can’t clean a compromised system by patching it….You can’t clean a compromised system by removing the back doors….You can’t clean a compromised system by using some ‘vulnerability remover’…You can’t clean a compromised system by using a virus scanner….You can’t clean a compromised system by reinstalling the operating system over the existing installation….You can’t trust any data copied from a compromised system….You can’t trust the event logs on a compromised system….You may not be able to trust your latest backup….If you have a system that has been completely compromised, the only thing you can do is to flatten the system (reformat the system disk) and rebuild it from scratch (reinstall Windows and your applications).” I keep trying to tell my customers this <sigh>. Maybe they’ll believe it if it comes from Microsoft.