Can a virus hide?

[RonJohn]

Over the past two weeks, I have employed the great folks on this board to help me with a problem (See "Great Weekend - NOT"). My son had his log on to an on-line game hacked and his character stripped of all it's equipment. We tried to track down the culprit and clean my PC. After many attempts, we seemed to have gotten the job done. Then the very next day, he logs on under his account and we immediately get a AVG pop-up stating that a virus had been detected which had the same name as the key logger we had been trying to eliminate. My question is can a virus like this hide on one log on account so that it cannot be found by another even though I am an administrator? He has admisinstrative rights as well.

[Broni]

My question is can a virus like this hide on one log on account so that it cannot be found by another even though I am an administrator?

No. It's still very same computer. Antimalware tools scan whole computer, regardless of who is logged in.

Run the F-Secure online scan for Viruses, Spyware and RootKits: http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml

This scanner works with Internet Explorer only

* Go to the F-Secure Online Virus Scanner
* Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Start scanning button. A window will pop up.
* Allow the Active X control to be installed on your computer, then click the Accept button
* Click Full System Scan and allow the components to download and the scan to complete.
* If malware is found, check Submit samples to F-Secure then select Automatic cleaning
* When cleaning has finished, click Show report (this will open an Internet Explorer window containing the report)
* Highlight and Copy (CTRL + C) the complete report, and Paste (CTRL + V) in a new reply to this post

If Automatic cleaning with Submit samples hangs, click Cancel, then New Scan

* When the cleaning option is presented, Uncheck Submit samples to F-Secure
* Click Automatic cleaning
* When cleaning has finished, click Show report (this will open an Internet Explorer window containing the report)
* Highlight and Copy (CTRL + C) the complete report, and Paste (CTRL + V) in a new reply to this post along with a fresh HijackThis log.

Note:

* This scan will only work with Internet Explorer
* You must have administrator rights to run this scan
* This scan can take over an hour so please be patient