Posted on 01/02/2009 7:44:38 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
Sorry for the vanity but it's part warning/part SOS. My computer has been infected with a rather nasty virus and I'm wondering if anyone else has faced it.
I was watching the bowl game last night about 9 when my wife called me. She was doing some research on vacations and she got a warning about a virus. I go up there and it's a pop-up for some spy-ware download. Warnings that my computer may be infected, down load the software and save my system, the usual stuff. My wife is pretty savy and knows better than to respond to things like that so she called me.
I sit down and it's the damndest thing I've ever seen. I don't hit the execute on anything, just try and close the windows which was probably what it wanted. I also keep getting two icons to some porn sites, which I keep deleting but they keep reappearing. I finally stop that by clearing the recycle bin. And eventually the popups stop.
I've got Norton 360, in fact I downloaded it on Wednesday. I try and do a system scan and I can't get Norton to start. The Icon on the lower bar that is usally there saying I'm protected by Norton 360 has disappeared. It's getting late so I do the only thing I can think of and run Spybot on the off chance it may find something. It runs it's course and finds 6 errors. I let it correct them. Then I shut down for the night. At this point I'm annoyed but not overly concerned.
This morning I go to restart it and find that the system had never completely shut down - the final "Windows is shutting down" screen was still displayed. I start it and no Norton 360 start up. I try and start it manually and nothing. I try to get to the Symantec website and I get "Page Cannot Be Displayed" screens. I get occasional pop-ups for the ADS Anti Virus software. I start up my work laptop and can get to Symantec with no problems. So now I'm waiting for Geeks On Call and wondering just what the hell I picked up.
To recap: 1) It kicked off around 9 PM Central on New Years Day. This makes me wonder if it could have been downloaded earlier and lay in wait for January 1.
2) With two exceptions the popups are all for anti-spyware downloads. Warnings about system being infected, download now to protect your computer, that sort of stuff. ADS Anti-Spyware seems to be one of them.
3) The two exceptions are that during the original battle with the popups, two icons appeared on the desktop. Both advertised porn sites. I highlighted and deleted those several times but they kept reappearing until I finally emptied my Recycle Bin.
4) It seems to be blocking my anti-virus software from running at all. I can't get any response from Norton 360 whenever I try to start it. Spybot and Ad-Aware seem to run fine.
5) Possibly weirdest of all, it's blocking access to www.norton.com and www.symantec.com. Try to access them directly and I get "Page Cannot Be Displayed". Try to google them and then access them from Google and get the same thing on some links or get directed to another site offering "Advanced anti-virus software" on others.
6) System is an HP pavillion about 4 1/2 years old. Runs Windows XP. Service packs are up to date.
Anyone out there come across anything like this?
I ran it in safe mode and it worked. It took an hour to scan everything, but there was no other way. This virus/trojan is hideous. The perpetrator should get the death penalty.
AVG is good. Recently, on advice of my computer guro, I replaced it with Avira Antivir Personal, also free. Both AVG and Avira come out of Europe. Both beat the Norton’s and Mcaffe’s out there. Both AVG and Avira download updates automatically and both have paid versions available.
I use COMODO for my firewall, and it is excellent - also free. Mine blocks all pop-ups, advising me and allowing me to allow the pop-up if I wish to do so - I do not. I have used ZoneAlarm, but like COMODO better.
Google any of the above to find the free downloads.
“To all you Microsoft bashers on this forum, please refrain from expressing your vile hatred for one of the greatest products known to mankind. It’s the main reason we are typing on our keyboards this very moment.”
As you wish, I’ll refrain from “vile hatred.” LOL So tell us, what flavor was that cool-aid, anyway?
I seem to recall that my Atari 800 and 130XE both had keyboards as did my first IBM XT clone running IBM DOS, so MS isn’t in anyway responsible for that. However, MS is responsible for unleashing what some of us view as the most ambitious virus known to the computer world. Millions of manhours and billions of dollars are spent every year to protect and repair everything from systems to identities due to both lax program security and uneducated end users.
But you are apparently happy with your choice and all the lost/wasted hours of your time. Myself, I made a different choice a few years ago and no longer worry about such things.
Yeah, that’s why I went with the Zone Alarm product. I’m able to turn off things I don’t need.
Norton can take their software and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
I got something similar. Something that made the computer unusable. Call their tech help and sure enough, they know about it and have a fix, but if I want it, it’ll be $85.
They mumbled something that they had to get Microsoft’s permission or that it was because it altered Microsoft code, yada, yada, bullcrap.
I'm pretty sure this was the topic of last week's emergency update it Internet Explorer. Lots of legitimate websites have been hijacked because they didn't update their software. Most are running Wordpress on Linux boxes. It's a Wordpress problem rather than a Linux problem, but it demonstrates that the OS cannot protect you from everything.
System Restore can fix things if it hasn’t been disabled. In my brief experience with the new malware, System Restore has been disabled. I posted my preventive backup method. I’ve tried it twice and it works. It takes about five minutes.
Yeah, there are ~5 programs I disconnect manually every time I start up. ‘Twould be nice to skip the effort.
I'm not noticing any memory hoggish features nor bloated toolbars / offerings.
Works great.
Of coarse, with Vista on my laptop....everything is heaven except for that.
Thanks.
2001 Dell running WinME in dialup connection. I’m used to its quirks, just looking to cut processor time as well as intrusive software (Kodak, f’rinstance).
I've used “cleaner” on my systems, it's pretty helpful.
Let me know what’cha think.
I see you’re getting lots of advice here.
Norton is OK, but it’s a big drain on your system. However, since you’ve got it if you can get it to run it should do the job for you.
What you want to accomplish is either (a) boot in safe mode and run your antivirus or (b) set it up to perform a boot-up scan. The latter is preferable. What it does is it will stop the boot up process from executing other executables (like the virus you’ve picked up) until the Antivirus has had a chance to clean things up.
I use Avast! on my 6 computers here at home. It’s free, seems to do a good job, and have very little overhead on my PC. You can download it for free from the internet and tell it to do a scan before bootup. Then reboot your PC. If you’re having problems shutting it down, unplug it then plug it back in.
Also, it sounds like you might have some malicious software that antivirus can’t remove. I know there are a couple that come from pop-ups like you describe. My kids picked it up once and I had a time getting rid of the fool thing. Microsoft has a Malicious Software Removal program that can help, and you can look for help using Google if your antivirus has identified the malware.
FReepmail me if you can’t proceed.
I think you have a browser hijack happening. My son’s with their browsing pick these up on some gaming sites and others. You mentioned that you have Adaware and Spybot S&D. They will help get rid of the hijack. Run Spybot and delete all it picks up. Then run Adaware and delete all that it finds. That should do it. After you’ve done that make sure the popup blocker is turned on before you open your browser. You can do that through the control panel.
I bought 2 laptops last year. The first, for my wife, had Vista. The d@mn thing would lose track of her USB printer and the only way to get it back was to re-boot. What a pain-in-the-butt. Worse yet because my wife is not so computer-savvy. When the time came to get me a new laptop I order XP for it (just under the wire with Dell).
Later I purchased a licensed copy of XP Pro & installed it on my wife's computer. Night & Day, baby!
I don’t know what all the Hubbub is about norton but I’ve been using it for years and with the exception of it being resource heavy, it has done a good job of protecting 3 laptops and 2 desktops here. I recently bought a 5 liscense package for internet security 2008. works great with using less resources and they gave me a free update to version 2009 which runs smoother still. JMT.
“I tried the Malwarebytes but it turns out that this particular virus blocks access to sites like malwarebytes as well as my Norton and Symantec.”
Of course.
You download it onto a thumb drive on another computer, or email it to yourself from the local library computer if you can’t find a spare.
Anyway, first off, just out of curiosity, what browser are you using?
Most steps already offered, will probably work. But you should know, that running and or installing any kind of removal software from an infected system is suspect IMHO. Especially if you're running windows and the user has administrator rights.
Back in the day, the preferred method to eradicate such infections was to boot into DOS from a clean floppy, then run the AV software from floppy. That's still the preferred method IMHO, although the software has gotten bigger so booting from CD/DVD would be the norm today. I don't know if you can make a Windows boot CD, but it would be wise to have a Live CD/DVD of a Linux distro around. Very good AV software is available that runs on Linux and a Live CD puts you into a working system from DVD so it can't be infected. And yes, a Linux Live CD can access an NTFS file system.
Also, as an afterthought, whenever you come across the popups that you did, trying to close the popup, or properly shutdown windows, is probably a bad idea. Any half assed virus programmer will have accounted for that and doing so will probably just aggravate the situation. My method would be to hit the power button immediately. Then boot from CD and scan the system.
FWIW & good luck!
Ditto. Norton slows down your entire system and is very intrusive.
I dumped Norton and got Kaspersky long ago..System is faster and runs smooth.
I’m just waiting for Windows release in June. Supposedly going to make right what they mucked up with Vista.
Use this: F-Prot.
Doesn't hog resources, works great. $29.00 to put on 5 home computers.
I've been using it for years and never had a problem.
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