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, they 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 two of the simplest to use are also amongst the most effective. The first is called Panda Anti-Rootkit [1]. It’s my top recommendation for average users because it not only good at detecting rootkits it also quite effective at removing them. As a bonus it’s small and doesn’t require installation though you do have register at the Panda website before you can download it. 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.
Panda Anti-Rootkit will detect most rootkits missed by AV scanners but it can’t provide perfect detection; no rootkit detector can. That’s why I suggest you use more than one.