How to Use Stinger

McAfee Stinger is a standalone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It’s not a substitute for full antivirus protection, but a specialized tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with infected system. Stinger utilizes next-generation scan technology, including rootkit scanning, and scan performance optimizations. It detects and removes threats identified under the "Threat List" option under Advanced menu options in the Stinger application.

McAfee Stinger now detects and removes GameOver Zeus and CryptoLocker. Learn more.

How do you use Stinger?

Download the latest version of Stinger.
When prompted, choose to save the file to a convenient location on your hard disk, such as your Desktop folder.
When the download is complete, navigate to the folder that contains the downloaded Stinger file, and run it.
The Stinger interface will be displayed.
By default, Stinger scans for running processes, loaded modules, registry, WMI and directory locations known to be used by malware on a machine to keep scan times minimal. If necessary, click the "Customize my scan" link to add additional drives/directories to your scan.
Stinger has the capability to scan targets of Rootkits, which is not enabled by default.
Click the Scan button to begin scanning the specified drives/directories.
By default, Stinger will repair any infected files it finds.
Stinger leverages GTI File Reputation and runs network heuristics at Medium level by default. If you select "High" or "Very High," McAfee Labs recommends that you set the "On threat detection" action to "Report" only for the first scan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I know I have a virus, but Stinger did not detect one. Why is this?
A: Stinger is not a substitute for a full anti-virus scanner. It is only designed to detect and remove specific threats.

Q: Where is the scan log saved and how can I view them?
A: By default the log file is saved from where Stinger.exe is run. Within Stinger, navigate to the log TAB and the logs are displayed as list with time stamp, clicking on the log file name opens the file in the HTML format.

Q: Where are the Quarantine files stored?
A: The quarantine files are stored under C:\Quarantine\Stinger.

Q: Are there any command-line parameters available when running Stinger?
A: Yes, the command-line parameters are displayed by going to the help menu within Stinger.

Q: I ran Stinger and now have a Stinger.opt file, what is that?
A: When Stinger runs it creates the Stinger.opt file that saves the current Stinger configuration. When you run Stinger the next time, your previous configuration is used as long as the Stinger.opt file is in the same directory as Stinger.