VB newbie here.. Anyone willing to offer some help???

[minitech]

Out of curiosity, do you actually have any virus strings yet?
You can read a file bit by bit using a FileStream and BinaryReader:

Dim virus_string() As Byte = {} 'Whatever the virus string is
Using fs As New IO.FileStream("location of file to scan", IO.FileMode.Open, IO.FileAccess.Read)
     Using br As New IO.BinaryReader(fs)
          Dim found As Boolean = False
          Do
               Dim position As Integer = br.BaseStream.Position
               Dim matchindex As Integer = 0
               Dim b As Byte
               Do
                    b = br.ReadByte()
                    matchindex += 1
                    If matchindex = virus_string.Length Then
                         'Found a virus!!!
                         found = True
                         Exit Do
                    End If
               Loop While virus_string(matchindex-1) = b
          Loop Until found OrElse br.BaseStream.Position = br.BaseStream.Length
          If found Then
               MessageBox.Show("FOUND A VIRUS!")
          End If
          br.Close()
     End Using
End Using

Just do that for every virus string you have.