“Indestructible” rootkits, “fatal” trojans, “hellish” viruses – malware has always been a great topic for generating scary headlines.

There’s generally no need to worry, though. Almost whatever the threat, if you can just wait for a while then a free (and often simpler) solution will turn up.

The latest variant of the Popureb Trojan, for instance (Popureb.E), hides itself away in your Master Boot Record, and hooks a hard drive port driver in an attempt to protect itself from being overwritten. It’s so deeply buried that Microsoft initially recommended reinstalling Windows if you were infected, but a few days later they changed their advice to point out that a little work with the Recovery console could get your PC back to normal.  Or alternatively, a free Webroot tool can detect and remove the threat for you in just a couple of clicks.

Meanwhile, TDL4 has been making even more headlines, and it’s not difficult to see why.

The rootkit can similarly conceal itself in your Master Boot Record. It’s able to infect both 32 and 64-bit systems, bypassing Microsoft’s PatchGuard protection scheme. Smart use of peer-to-peer communications means it can’t be taken out by closing down a server or two, and overall TDL4 is so effective that it’s reportedly managed to infect 4.5 million PCs worldwide.

Could this be you? Maybe – it is hard to detect – but, again, there’s an easy and free way to find out. BitDefender has just released a portable removal tool (in both 32 and 64-bit flavours) which will, at the click of a button, scan your system for TDSS/ TDL4 and remove any variants it finds.