Spyware Woes

I logged into a wireless network at the Metropolitan airport when I noticed a decrease in performance and erratic software behavior.

I have Spybot search and destroy for spyware, use Zone alarm for a firewall and Norton Antivirus . Norton states no viruses exist.

I just got hit with some bad spyware which has rendered IE virtually useless. When I search on google and click a link I get sent to some alternate web site.

Netscape and Firefox appear unscathed but run very slowly.

I ran Spybot and Adaware which cleaned the system but the problems persist. I don't even want to log into email or shop online for the sake of transmitting data which may have already happened.

Any solutions other than to reinstall windows and the software?

 

Id just do a reformat in order to have the maximum results again. And then, from now on, you might want to use Firefox instead of IE, but still have IE around just for certian web pages that need it.

 

I would not do a reformat right away - sure, it will fix the problem, but is also time consuming, and you have to start all over.

Try the following:
-First, update all your AntiSpyware/Virus programs with the latest definitions, especially Ad-Aware and Norton.

-Download the "hosts.zip" file from this website:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
Open it with WinZip or WinRAR (you can download them if you don't have them - just do a Google search ), and extract the hosts file to the following directory:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC - overwrite the existing file.

-Now that you did that (basically, what that did was use a different HOSTS file, which tells what pages to load, if they're valid, etc. Sometimes the hosts file can be modified by other malware/spyware programs to hijack your web browser and redirect it - so if you go to a certain website, you may be taken somewhere else. We just replaced it, so that won't happen.) Boot into Safe Mode - basically where you boot into a very primitive form of Windows, where only critical services are running - the Spyware can't.

-To get into Safe Mode - On startup, press F8 - Highlight "Safe Mode" (no networking), and hit Enter.

-Once in Safe Mode, run all of your Antispyware apps, as well as Norton.

-Reboot - after successful completion of the ASpyware/Virsus programs, and you should be A-OK.

ChazMan out!

 

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3155

Program called HiJackThis!, which shows you a bunch of registry settings that may be helping to take over your computer. also things like "secondary DNS servers" added to your hosts file that will redirect you to malicious websites. Also recommend going through your IE preferences to the security tab and resetting everything to default AFTER you have run the spyware removers. spyware/viruses will often add numerous malicious sites to your trusted sites areas.

 

ChazMan

Thanks for the advice. What happens now is that when I click on a link on Google, instead of getting the redirection, I get "Page cannot be displayed".

 

Thanks that seemed to do the trick on removing some of the spyware. What a pain in the butt this spyware is!

My concerns are that the security of IE is now compromised since I do a lot of financial transactions.

Since this garbage has seemed to attack IE, is Netscape and Firefox (which I also use), also vulnerable to my
security concerns?

 

Well after several hours of trying to run spyware cleaners, antivirus, hijack this and fixit that, I got fed up since my antivirus still said I had a Trojan horse and my spyware software was still picking up stuff.

I use FF exclusively but this virus and mess had altered internet explorer and WINDOWS explorer so there was no way around it. I felt that the security of laptop was compromised so I formatted the HD, reinstalled Windows and everything else.

Thanks for all of the help, everyone.