Please help!!! Computers can't ping.

[Hunkah]

Hello, I am so deep in crap I can't see anything but poop anymore.

I can't figure out this problem, and hoped that someone out there knows.

I am a network admin, that is going on only 1 hour sleep for the past 2 days, I had to travel, then when I got back to work (already tired from not sleeping during my trip) there was a virus on all the computers (caused by someone surfing porn!!!) what I found was melower.exe on all the Windows boxes, it is a trojan and has crippled everything! Even my linux boxes aren't working. They can no longer ping, and it seems like there is nothing working when it comes to anything to do with the LAN. WRT54Gs aren't routing in or out, Linux boxes are DHCP, DNS, Samba Fileserving, mail and such. But I can't even get them to see each other anymore.

I have disconnected all the computers from the LAN, and am trying to kill the virus problem first, then tackle the Linux problems.

I need some sleep, so I can think again, hopefully someone has heard of what this is, and can help. For some reason, it seem like the Virus knows how to cripple the NICs and changes the IP addresses.

Thank-you to anyone that can help.

[mndar]

I don't think the virus can cripple your Linux boxes. The windows machines must be putting a lot of load on your network. My suggestion is to disconnect all windows computers, get your Linux machines up and running, get your network right and then deal with the windows ones. You might wanna check those for goaway.exe as well.

Although, I don't understand how the Linux systems were affected. That could have happened only if someone had the permission or did mess up the linux boxes themselves.

[Jman]

Capture some network traffic with ethereal or similar tools to see what's going on if you have no clue.

[Hunkah]

Sorry, thanks, you guys for responding. I fixed it. It wasn't the linux boxes (THANK GOD!) it was all the windows boxes. They were all sending out tons of traffic and causing collisions. I had to take about 4 hours for each one to fix (most I did at the same time) but what a nightmare!!! There was a new virus that didn't have a fix, I finally got a fix that took three programs to get rid of. Windows boxes all crippled!!! each down for 4 days. Linux boxes all normal and functioning!!! Frig windows!

[mndar]

Actually there is a similar problem o computers sending too much data(broadcast packets) on the LAN where the ISP offers pppoe connections. What exactly did you do, to fix your problem ?

[Hunkah]

I had to remove everything from the network (I removed the linux boxes as well, because I thought they were infected too, with all the collisions happening, they couldn't ping each other) then I found a site that had a similar problem, not exactly the same one, but involved melower.exe, which I found running on all the windows machines. So I downloaded the three programs, booted into safe mode and ran them in alphebetical order on each machine. Total time for each machine to finish was about 4 hours. I then installed a firewall on each of the windows machines (now the real headache starts, because of all the phonecalls, asking me what las2129snfskenldfos.exe is) But at least these calls will stop after a couple weeks and everyone is back to work. Well except for the guy that was surfing porn!!!

[tomcat]

You should send around a mail or letter/shot notice to every workstation, informing the users of the new firewall and the "las2129..." message and what it is all about. This will stop them using the phone all the time and getting on your nerves.