yesterday i ran Kaspersky full scan and i got 12 infection of this virus.

And I think all is good now..

Kaspersky maybe has erased all the infections..

I have put the scan to “high”, and it took 12hrs to scan all..

i have no problem actually..but dunno if in future i will get problems..

I will do another scan, to stay assured that there is none of these infections…

this virus is owesome.. :) pc slows a lot during scan also..

pc started to lag…

1st thing to do: update Kaspersky
2nd: disconect from net
3rd: deep very deep scan
4th: restart pc
5th: again a deep deep scan..

then good.. I think problem solved..

Bingo
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:28 pm 56

Hello everybody. Only became aware of this thing about 5 days ago when the computer started shutting down and various programs became unworkable. Also, all files on my key drive disappeared and the drive had to be reformatted. Can’t swear that the virus did this but I cnn’t think of anything else to explain it. Windows Firewall (I’m running XP Pro) reported that I had a Virtob infection but AVG, Zone Alarm, and Ad-aware reported nothing. So after a bit of researching, I found the Kaspersky online scanner. This revealed that quite a lot of files were infected with win32.virut.ce but these could not be deleted by the online scanner. However, Kaspersky are doing a Full 30 day trial of Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 and I installed this. On checking drives C, D, and External Drive F, Kaspersky found and disinfected, or deleted, about 700 infected files. Reran the program and a few more files were found and treated. I am completed my third scan and the infection seems to have gone. Can’t say this will work for everyone but it seems to have worked for me. Worth a try and good luck to you. This is one awkward sob. I will report back if the infection recreates itself in the next few days, but so far it’s looking good

Bingo
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 pm 57

Following on from earlier post, I found that a few vrt.tmp files were appearing in C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temp but Kaspersky was preventing them loading or connecting to the net. I ran the scan next in Safe Mode and this disinfected the few files which could not be done in normal mode. As of this moment, this machine is now completely free, as far as I can see, of Virut and anything else. All programs and files seem to be working normally and the Kaspersky Network Monitor is showing that there are no suspect connections. Just for information, my operating system is XP Pro SP3. Kaspersky seems to have given me the complete solution to this pest. Well worth giving it a try. Free 30 day trial could rid you of this problem.

Bingo
July 31st, 2009 at 8:35 am 59

Well, just to tie up the story on my experiences, I am now a week on from installing Kaspersky and ridding myself of Virut and it has not reappeared. That about says it all. Would highly recommend Kaspersky for ridding yourself of Virut

It must get deep into all drives that it finds to make them autorun. Anyway – Sunbelts Vipre anti-malware caught it on the hosting computer and kept it from spreading.

The lesson anyway: be sure and hold down the shift key as you insert a USB drive (even if it’s a adapter for IDE/serial/SCSI) to keep it from auto-running.

wow – this thing… it gets deep into sysvol and even maintenance partitions.

I used Darik’s Boot and Nuke (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/) for the guest drive (inc maint partition) after reading about the issues here and I’ve not heard from it again.

My guess is people keep on getting reinfected by using their infected-auto-running USB drives or accessing infected .exe’s that they backed up – unless their is some bios component it can load into that I’ve been luckily enough not to have encountered.

I can’t say that I’m 100% free of the stupidity this thing does, but… I might have easy tips for getting rid of the virus, and some pointers to note for people who might be having issues:

1. The virus indiscriminantly infects all .exe and .scr files (even inside .zip, .rar, .7z, or any other kind of archive.) It also infects mostly system .dll files.

2. It does NOT infect any other “media” file. These include .mp3, .ogg, .wav, .avi, .mpg extensions and the like.

3. It doesn’t matter if you have more than one internal or external HDD or Flash drive (or any media that is rewritable), anything that meets the infection criteria WILL get infected.

4. Even if one file is already infected, the virus and any instances running WILL re-infect the same file in a different section of the coding. Thus, multiple scans are necessary to make sure the file is ABSOLUTELY clean.

So… I have a LOT of music and videos that I’m a little too attached to and that I don’t want to lose. When I noticed that this stupid thing targets executables, I realized that I needed to reformat the HDD carrying the OS. I did, and the virus came back.

I then noticed some strange occurrences. Obviously, port 65520 was being accessed by winlogon.exe and explorer.exe. Even though this was a fresh install, I needed to reformat again already.

So, I took up the task of arming myself to clear out this virus from my system with the following tools:

1. Windows XP CD
2. Hiren’s Boot CD v. 10.0
3. Ubuntu v. 8.04 Live CD

Here’s how that worked.

1. I turned off my computer and unplugged the power cord and the Ethernet cable. Left off for 30 min, then plugged the power cord (not ethernet) back in, then booted to Hiren’s Boot CD.
2. I used Hiren’s Boot CD’s partition tools to delete all partitions and destroy the data in the HDD carrying Windows XP.
3. I used the HDD Regenerator in the Hard Disk tools section to check for corrupted sectors. Usually this only applies to physical errors and not so much to data, but if a section has been damaged it’s good to know. Everything came back clean.
4. Went back to Partition Tools and formatted out an NTFS partition for Windows XP.

5. Rebooted and used the Ubuntu Live CD. Using this I was able to get the drivers for anything that I needed on the computer, and clean virus free copies of them because Linux doesn’t have these kinds of virus issues. I also downloaded Virut Removal Tools and Comodo Internet Security and Dr. Web Cure It!. This is good for people that have lost their recovery CDs or their motherboard or display drivers. I placed all these into a clean USB Flash drive. When I copied everything in, I ejected and disconnected the drive.

6. I rebooted into the Windows XP CD. When asked for the desired partition, I performed yet another Format (not quick) on the blank NTFS partition. Proceeded with installing Windows.

7. When Windows loaded, I connected the USB Flash drive and placed its contents on the desktop. Proceeded with installing everything, starting with the basic motherboard drivers all the way to the AV tools and Security software. Ethernet cable is STILL disconnected.

8. Here I noticed none of the system files were behaving erratically. When Comodo Internet Security asked me to update the Virus DB, I then connected the Ethernet cable. Connections were safe, and port 65520 was not being accessed by any program. Definitions were updated, and port 65520 was eventually blocked.

9. Used Dr. Web Cure It! and performed a complete scan of the computer and all disks connected (USB Flash disconnected) overnight. Found a ridiculous amount of instances of Win32.Virut.56. Also found a few miscellaneous backdoors and other trojans.

10. Removed all files mentioned by the Dr. Web scan. Proceeded to scan computer again with Comodo Internet Security AV scan. Few more infections came up, proceeded to remove those as well.

11. Noticed that none of the removed content was on C:\. Proceeded with a deep scan of both HDDs’ “System Volume Information” folder. Found another ridiculous set of instances of Win32.Virut.Ce. Removed them all.

12. This is where I find myself.

Every time I idle my computer and it accesses the screen saver, I notice that my computer has found yet another instance of Virut in the non-Windows HDD’s “System Volume Information” folder. I did just scan again and found more instances, so I removed those.

I just can’t seem to tell whether the virus is still active, or if it’s just remnants. When I use the system, Comodo does not alert me of anything. Also, websites are not blocked, and media files from that HDD do not further aggravate the system as I use them.

Though, I think I’m pretty clear! Hope this helps as another guide and alternative to clear out Virut.

After several scans using McAfee and Kaspersky online scanner (so far), luckily, my computer has not been infected. After doing a bit of research and reading a bunch of message boards, a lot of them say that the best resolution is to format and reinstall the OS. From what I’ve read (check out Spybot S & D message boards and search for Virut), this virus is said to attach itself to exe, scr, htm, html, asp, php, pdf, doc and even jpg files. There might be more that I’m unaware of but to say the least, this has to be one of the nastiest viruses I’ve ever run into.

Some people have said that this virus can be eliminated but I’m not willing to take this risk giving I transport some of my data between home and work with a flash drive. Good luck to anyone who spends days on end trying to fix instead of reinstalling their OS. Computers 101….ALWAYS back up your data in the event something like this should occur. You may spend several hours reinstalling all of your software but it beats spending days on end trying to fix a virus that might come back.

Microsoft has released a security bulletin (967940) with a patch (KB971029) that will disable the AutoRun feature for flash drives to prevent automatic installation of software included (U3, etc) and will help prevent the running of an infected exe file. Best of luck everyone…

In one of the earlier posts someone mentioned that he used a irc prog to connect to his computer and managed to ulter the options of the virus. Im curious to know if this is true.

What exactly is the danger of the port (65520) that this thing uses ? Assuming you are able to clear the infection from your system (disk & memory), then is there any chance that it can re-enter ? I am assuming not.

This malware is probably added by Win32.Agent along with Win32.Delf and b.exe, just to mention the most critical ones and some others (3-4 more)

– It hides on your portable devices such as pendrives portable hard disk or other partitions.
– When you connect to the internet, this will download the whole pack again, causing you more trouble.
– These malware only works on 32-bit based Windows systems. You should consider updating to 64-bit (there are some drawback) or try Windows 7.
– Only Win32.Virut will infect files, others should create their own, which you can find in “C:\” and “C:\Windows\system32″ or in “Documents and Settings”

Note: A new version has come out in October 2009 and even Kaspersky Labs do not have an update for this infection yet. Although, Kaspersky is able to competely eradicate this virus, thanks to it’s more advanced and intelligent being, compered to other virusbusters.

Conclusion: I am now using Windows 7 x64, works quite well that far.

DO NOT START ANY PROGRAMS YET, THEY WILL GET INFECTED

1. Pull the plug on your internet connection, because it will try to connect to its website (jL.chura.pl and maybe others) and download more crap to your PC

2. Go to Task Manager and kill ANY program that looks unfamiliar (this can be tricky, if you’re a not a computer geek)

3. Run services.msc and you’ll see at least 2 services running which have NO description. Stop them and then disable them (by right clicking). Also stop and disable Remote Access Connection Manager, and Background Intelligent Transfer System, if they are running. These are Windows processes, but I think the virus activates them.

4. Repeat step 2 just in case

5. Now you have a choice:
a)You can run restore, but you have to be very sure that the restore is clean
b) run your antivirus. A full scan is preferable, but at least C:\Windows\ and C:\Program Files\. The virus infected only logonui.exe in my case and changed the HOSTS file, and created a temporary file in the WINDOWS\TEMP directory, but nothing else. However, if you ran any program while the virus was loaded, that program will be infected too.

This is the stage on which I am myself. The virus is removed but my system is still a bit screwed up, because everytime I reboot a hidden process iexplore.exe is started, except it’s not connecting anywhere. I’m not sure what’s starting it, but I dealt with it by killing the process and moving iexplore.exe to a temporary folder.

THAnks

This is a mean ass virus

After reading the entire forum and all comments, downloaded the two scan engines from AVG and Symantec running the scans, I was left with 2 pc’s and my laptop strikingly rotten effected with the virus.win32.virut.ce.

Yes formatting the three machines would seem like the best way to go BUT unfortunately not all of us have the luxury of simply formatting and starting all over.

I followed the advice of Fabietto posted on July 8, 2009 . Re : the hiren’s bootcd and Kasperskey scans.

The only difference was that the scan detected the infected files but could not disinfect them, but only quarantine them. By the third scan on all 3 pc’s, they were clean. I even ran a fourth scan just to make sure the monster were slain. Unfortunately it did do a lot of serious damage to the .exe files in the \windows\system32 as wél as the explorer.exe and the scvhost.exe were smashed.

With these files quarantined and not disinfected my windows logon was lost. So the original XP cd was unleashes and a complete xp installation was repaired. (NOT the repair console/panel. It wont work ) Repairing the XP installation only deletes the windows dir and reinstalls it, thus not loosing any other info.

All three pc’s are as clean as can be, BUT unfortunately I can only access windows via safe mode. Normal boot only comes to the logon screen where one chooses a user, enters the password and then the blue screen of horror shows itself stating :

: Stop: c000021a {fatal System error} The windows logon process system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000034 (0×00000000 0×0000000) The system has been shut down

This error can be looked up on the Microsoft site AND it explains how to fix it.
If only I could. For reasoning far beyond my years I simply can not do it.

In the mean time I have installed a second copy of XP on one of the pc’s so I can access my files on the other installation. Yes one might argue that ending up with these result I simply could of formatted, but what can you do if you don’t want to just chuck away your info and let the enemy win. Fight as hard as you can.

ZoneAlarm found the virus & deleted it even before I launched the downloaded *.exe that contained the virus…

Better to have your PC set-up correctly to “catch” or scan all downloads BEFORE you double-click on them…

The best tings in life are FREE, remember?

Needed: Hiren’s Bootcd 9.9 (free).

1) Using a clean PC prepare a bootable Hiren Bootcd (i used a write protected USB stick, it’s yhe same)

2) Start windows in safe mode, create a new folder, find explorer.exe (c:\windows\explorer.exe) and copy it in the new folder. Do the same for c:\windows\system32\svchost.exe.

3) From control panel/System disable the ‘System restore’.

4) insert the Hiren Bootcd and start the Kaspersky antivirus tool (included in Hiren). It will find a lot of infected file; at the end it will prompt the action to do for infected files, choose ‘Disinfect’. It will disinfect all the files except the running explorer and svchost ( but that you copied in the new folder are disinfected).

5) Turn of your PC. Insert again the Hiren BootCD and turn On. Choose to bootstrap using Mini XP (from the main menu of Hiren bootcd).

6) From Mini XP access to C:, go to the new folder, copy the disinfected explorer.exe and paste it (replace) into the original folder (c:\windows). Do the same for svchost (into c:\windows\system32). Remove the Kaspersky folder from your c:\documents and settings\YourUserName\Settings\Temp folder.

7) Remove the Hiren Bootcd and reboot your pc from hard drive. Run again the Kaspersky from Hiren Bootcd. New infected files could be probably found, but after this the PC is cleaned.

Note that after the PC is cleaned you need to manually restore some registry entries (like SFCDisable and something else related to the firewall).

Enjoy and remember… never format, if you format the virus win !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Each piece of Malware has a source and some antiviral companies have been
able to islolate the countries of origin and occasionally even the cities
based upon outbreak concentrations, but so far no one has taken the fight
to the malicious codeslinger’s doorstep. Sure, Microsoft puts bounties on
the heads of some of the more talented malwareists, and while being better
than nothing, it certainly hasn’t seemed to reduce the new introductions
of ever more sophistocated malware. Malwareists are free to anomously
diseminate their wares from around the globe with virtually no fear
of reprecusions or reprisals.

This is a high stakes war. The cost of defending against malware attacks
is staggering, but when you factor in the even greater costs of lost
productivity it becomes clear that this is a war we can’t afford to
fight passively or on the defensive.

The Malwarists drew first blood and contiunue to attack our systems
daily without provocation and I, for one am more than sick and tired
of just taking it. Beyond the simple misenthropic, anti-social malicious
code-slingers, Malware is rapidly becoming the weapon of choice for
organized cyber-terrorists. The US government’s response to that threat
has been to pour more billions of dollars into passive, reactive and
defensive systems. How can you win a war by sitting behind a wall and
hoping no one figures out how to breach it?

We have to find a way of taking this war to the malwarists instead of
fighting every battle in our offices and homes. How is it that The
music recording industry and track down and prosecute a suburban single-mother
whose crime was the illegal dowloading of MP3′s, but no one can track
down the author of the Virut virus? The cost of that mother’s crime
only reflected a drop-in-the-bucket hit to the recording industry’s profits,
but Virut has, and will likely continue to cost the whole world untold
millions of dollars in lost productivity.

The days are gone when all we had to do was run a quick scan with
f-prot to eliminate all traces of malware from our computers.
The modern polymorphic malware strains require weeks-long or even
months-long efforts to clear, if they can be cleared at all.

Pumping money into ever more complicated defense walls only prolongs
the inevitable breach while sticking each of us with the bill. The only
logical solution is to eliminate the threat at its source…to apply at
least as many finacial and manpower resources to the task of tracking
down and eliminating malwarists as we currently do in building bigger
and supossedly better antiviral walls. If the MPAA and the Music Recording
Industry can track down copyright violators then surely the computer
industry and the world’s governments can track down malwarist.

The vigilante in me would love to see an application that could accurately
reverse track the origins of malware and then provide the names and
addresses of the malwarist. I’d enjoy expressing my frustration to them
personally, but I’d certainly settle for their prosecution and
punishment under the law.

http://downloads.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/RescueDisk/kav_rescue_2008.iso

I think I got it by opening a crack which I checked with Antispyware, NOD32 and Sypbot and which was reported to be “clean”. Nb: torrents are said to be full of virut.xx the last time, so watch out please.

I wonder why I actually waste my memory by having all those “checkers” in my task bar (including firewall), if NONE of them finds the risky file while downloading or while checking after the download ended :(

A last note: DR WEB SOFTWARE did NOT delete these files, it only noticed that they were infected and wrote “files deleted”, but this was NOT true and my system was still messed up with this BS!! None of those free tools of the most know AV companies removed the virus EITHER! Will make even more backups in future and burn my files regulary – good luck for you all!

Any questions, feel free to ask here.

Here’s how:

#1: Create a Windows version of the UltimateBootCD using an XP CD’s files and slipstream SP1 and SP2 into the files before you burn the UBCD.

#2: Download DrWeb CureIt! and either configure it as a plugin on the UBCD or burn it to a separate CD to open after you boot the computer. Note: You’ll need two CD ROM drives to do this, as the UBCD takes up one.

#3: Boot up using the UBCD and run CureIt!, delete any files it cannot repair. Then, power down your computer for 5+ minutes after so the virus cannot hide in the memory.

#4: Repeat step 3 until CureIt! no longer detects the virus.

#5: Repair any damaged Windows files with the XP CD, don’t use recovery console, instead select repair installation.

That’s all there is to it, good luck.

secedit /configure /db %temp%\temp.mdb /cfg “%systemroot%\inf\defltwk.inf

If you came so far and your windows is still not working perfectly, a repair might now do the job =)

I can’t say I fixed it, but I sure came a long way, so here’s what I did. [Ninja edit: Yep! it did work!!]

First of all, disconnect from the internet. Get another computer to download what you need (basically both virut removal tools linked in the comments, the AVG and the Symantec one, plus Kaspersky AV 2009 trial).

Get your XP CD you used for your installation.
Reboot your windows on safe mode and use the Administrator account.

Run “cmd”. From here, create a useful bat file (edit run.bat, for example) containing this 6 lines:

del /f /q C:\windows\explorer.exe
del /f /q C:\windows\taskmgr.exe
del /f /q C:\windows\system32\dllcache\explorer.exe
del /f /q C:\windows\system32\dllcache\taskmgr.exe
expand **YOURCDDRIVE**:\i386\explorer.ex_ C:\windows\explorer.exe
expand **YOURCDDRIVE**:\i386\taskmgr.ex_ C:\windows\taskmgr.exe

The virus doesn’t infect .bat files, so this will be your very useful utility to kill the virus.
So, with your XP CD on your drive, run the bat (always with cmd) and voila! now you have task manager.
Run the task manager (type taskmgr on your cmd prompt) and kill the explorer.exe running.
run your bat again, and now you have an uninfected explorer.exe

Using your task manager, run both virut removing tools AND your KAV09 installer, run them all, get something to drink and/or eat.

Reboot into SAFE MODE AGAIN (with the admin account, not your username), run your nifty .bat again, kill explorer.exe again, run .bat again, run all programs again and make sure that they are not finding anything.

I then realised the virus messed with your login and users, so I created another user from safe mode (called test), and run windows in debug mode, login in with the new user (test) and you’ll get fully working kaspersky. Run it again.

Here’s the part nobody know which fixes your XP installation (like a reinstall/ repair) but faster and better.
Always on debug mode, with your test user, XP CD on drive, run the following command:

sfc /scannow

It should take a while, so go get dessert.

What it does is it gets a clean copy of each system file that is not exactly the same as in the cd, so it basically gets your system to an almost new state.

It’s very possible that the virus FUBAR’d your main user account, but I can assume by now that that’s the least of your concerns.

Tips:
1) Always have an antivirus running: FFS, KAV2009 costs 13 euros if you buy with 2 other friends (3 licenses, 39 euros) for ONE FULL YEAR. That’s dirt cheap, don’t run cracked antivirus, they will stop working when you need them (Murphy’s law)

2) DON’T use System Restore. It’s useless and it helps most virii hide and reappear. Just have recent backups on a hard drive you DON’T use for any other reason than backups (1 terabyte external HD is around 70 euros now)

3) Use linux. Or mac. And stick to windows for games / 3D design / whatever you really need windows for.

btw, these are the main tools i used:

kapersky 2009 (1 month trial key) + lastest virus definition
drweb cureit
fixvirut – symantec

Cleaning it was a pain in the ass though. Every 30 – 50 virut threats detected, i stopped the kapersky scan, & neutralize (disinfect & delete) before re-scanning again. About 400+ threats detected on my system. It’s advisable to disconnect your pc from the internet & any networks. After scan finished completely, I ran cureit (took about 3 hours). Then I used fixvirut, scan for another few hours. Then I turned off my pc, and went to sleep. It took me one whole day to do all these.

The next day, I repeat everything again. The virus subsequently disappeared as I repeat the steps, until all seems to be ok up to this day. I reinstalled damaged system files by running windows xp setup & choose to repair windows. Again, I’m in day 2 of testing stage. Hopefully the virus won’t resurface.

Regedit and Taskmgr disabled. Network shares attacked speedily. This thing is a bloody work of evil genius.

Symantec Corporate 9 and AVG didn’t detect it until too late. In other words, they missed the primary infection, and only woke up after the secondary packages were dropped.

And get this. One PC has been formatted and reinfected three times! I’m reinstalling the OS and drivers from the OEM Dell CDs, there’s no way they could be infected. Or is there?

But after System restore some viruses stay in folder System Volume Information.

Destroy them with Avira!

Here is how:
1. Make System restore- choose day, when you did not have virus.

2.Uninstall your anti-virus program, if it is not Avira(it is free!)! (I used Kaspersky, but it is too weak for this virus!)

3. Install free Avira.
4.Scan all-complete system!
5.All viruses Avira will sent to quarantine.
6.Delete from quarantine ALL FILES (“delete selected object from quarantine…”), what is infected with W32/Cholera (Avira call this-Virus.Win32.Virut.ce- so).
7. Make more full scans, at least 4- so many, till your scans can not find any virus!
8.Thats all-your computer is clean now!

See my story-martyrdom here:
http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=87809

The <iframe> includes the URL jL.chura.pl/rc/: a malware URL.

:(

(Thinking. if any reason in heuristics?…)

I’m impressed. Pissed as hell, but impressed none the less.
My laptop is a total loss. I’m DBANing it & starting over.
Hope my backups are ok. This thing is the nastiest virus I’ve ever seen. Good luck all who get it. My advice?

Get a Mac.

Its really one of the great ones. Its spreading itself through executables, integrating itself and autoexecuting each time the procedure is being called. Its creating a network driver in c:\windows\system32\drivers\{random letters}.sys
The driver automatically detects network connection and downloads the rest of the malware from some other infected stations of headquarters servers. Its usually creating executable in C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Temp or whatever your ~temp directive tell it to.
Its also creating c:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\s_reader.exe
I’ve been able to seen it working when calling:
#> netstat -na
from the cmd console. It was connection itself on the web receiving http packets.
Even if you reinstall OS you will eventually call one of the infected executable which will execute the same procedure of makes sure the virus is already loaded into memory. The best method:
1| Use BARTPE along with Kaspesky Internet Security (I use 7.0.1.135 updated every few hours.) – have it updated to the latest as KAV would not know about the virus until Sunday Feb. 15 2009. After booting the BARTPE cd you would have full access to the infected hard drive. You’ll then be able to use KAV to desinfect.
2| Reinstall fresh copy of OS and make sure the first thing you do after being able to see the desktop is to install and update as fast as possible Kaspersky Antivirus of Kaspersky Internet Security (I use 7.0.1.135).
3| Have the hard drive moved to another working computer which has the latest antivirus database updated.

someone mentioned using UBCD and malwarebytes, then following with MS-MRT.

MS says:
Recovery Steps
To detect this threat and other malicious software that may have been installed, run a full-system scan with an up-to-date antivirus product such as the Microsoft online scanner (http://safety.live.com). For more information, see http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/vista.mspx.

Note: Virus:Win32/Virut.BM’s method of infection may damage some infected files beyond repair. In these cases, in order to return a machine to its pre-infected state, it may be necessary to install a clean backup of the operating system and associated applications.

Bottom Line: FORMAT THE DISK with extreme prejudice.