Mandiant Redline is an interesting tool which can analyse all the processes running on your PC, and then attempt to highlight any which might be malicious.

The program isn't just another passive antivirus tool, simply trying to match processes with samples in a virus database. Instead it looks at what's happening on your PC right now, and uses a variety of rules to score each process for trustworthiness (is it digitally signed, is it hooking other elements of the operating system, does it have network connections open, and more).

One problem with this approach is that it will raise false alarms all the time. On our test PC, for instance, Redline reported that the process with the highest malware score was iTunesHelper.exe: hmmm. So you must keep in mind that the scores are a general indication only, just something to give you a general idea of the programs you need to examine more closely. They do not prove you're infected by anything in themselves.

If you do think your PC has been infected by something unpleasant, though, Redline does provide a lot of useful system information which can tell you more. You can review how your target processes are accessing files, the Registry, network ports, memory blocks and more. And you're able to view operating system hooks, active drivers, your memory configuration, open network ports/ connections, and more.

You will have to wait quite some time for this, unfortunately: even a minimal scan took around half an hour on our test PC (though you can help by closing down all non-essential programs before you launch Redline).

Still, if you believe you may have been infected by brand new malware, and your regular antivirus tool can't spot it, then Redline just may be able to help (as long as you're knowledgeable enough to understand its reports).