About a month ago I had some very specific Google redirects – so specific that only one search term was ever redirected. I tried testing it by running all sorts of Google searches but that one term was was the only one that was ever redirected – and it was frequently redirected.
On the same day that this started my Firefox’s Google Toolbar was updated and its behavior changed, but I don’t remember ever being notified that an update was available.
I have always been very good about scanning with MBAM and Avast! – well, for the last year, at least – but nothing odd had shown up before this. I ran several full scans with MBAM, several standard scans with Avast!, a boot-time scan and a thorough scan with Avast. Aside from some false positive issues with both Avast! and MBAM, I only had one troubling indication – on Dec 18th MBAM claimed to have found a Trojan in one of my system restore files. I set a new restore point and deleted all previous files.
Meanwhile, an update became available for Firefox. When I updated it informed me that Google Toolbar was no longer compatible due, I believe, to problems with it being securely updated. This was especially interesting since I had already uninstalled the Google Toolbar addon.
I detailed my full history with this issue here at Bleeping Computer – I’m Capn Easy over there.
Yesterday when I turned my computer on, my ZoneAlarm (free) firewall was barraged by attempts from “agent.exe” to get past it. Usually more than one per minute, usually trying to loopback. This is the name of a legit program, part of InstallShield, but it never behaved like this before. I’ve got it blocked by ZoneAlarm, but it’s still trying to get past the firewall more than once a minute. I have hundreds, if not thousands, of entries in my ZoneAlarm log.
So, first, does anyone have any thoughts?
Second, a thorough scan with Avast! takes a lo-ooo-ong time. I’ve been skipping archive files since this gets it done faster and (I assume) anything in an archive is safe until I un-archive it. (One of my hobbies is restoring old LPs and I have a lot of archive files.) Is this a valid assumption, or should I have Avast! scan archives?
Thanks for your time!
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd160/cromag_pix/upl-photos/ZA-122209.jpg
