Bad Adware

Viruses and worms
1

Few Questions;
I have been unable to efectively use PC as of this morning have suddenly been bombarded with issues, popups, alleged trojan horse, multiple virus protection company adds, sudden blood Red Screen with Oriental writing, & dripping blood, etc, etc. so this effort has been put into high gear now, but the pop ups are not making it easy. Can you help with these issues?
If you do not have a Firewall, do you recomend one?
I have resolved the blood red screen & slowed the popups down some. However, still getting adware from about 3-4different virus protection companies bombarding computer with adds & warnings of alleged Trojans, worms, & malware. Have manually deleted probable alleged I files & cookies, to no avail. Also one of the add folks have over written home page address. Keep resetting it & saving but advertiser still pops up. I think this may be the root of the problem. I have not accepted any of their offers. The PC is extremely slow & allthis started suddenly this morning. Finally gave up & called comp mfr tech support, but wasn’t much help. They were not happy because I was not using Norton. They wanted me to try using some of the advertiser’s products as they indicate they will stop all this. I was reluctant, so they suggested the only solution is to backup, delete all data & files, & reload complete computer. It just doesn’t look that bad, but not sure what to do. Any ideas or help out there?

2

If a virus is replicant (coming and coming again), you could follow the general cleaning procedure:

  1. Disable System Restore on Windows ME or Windows XP. System Restore cannot be disabled on Windows 9x and it’s not available in Windows 2k. After boot you can enable System Restore again after step 3.

  2. Clean your temporary files. You can use CleanUp or the Windows Advanced Care features for that.

  3. Schedule a boot time scanning with avast. Start avast! > Right click the skin > Schedule a boot-time scanning. Select for scanning archives. Boot. Other option is scanning in SafeMode (repeatedly press F8 while booting).

  4. It will be good if you download, install, update and run AVG Antispyware. Some users recommend SUPERantispyware, Spyware Terminator and/or a-squared (take care about false positives).
    If any infection is detected, better and safer is send the file to Quarantine than to simple delete than.

  5. If you still detecting any strange behavior or even you’re sure you’re not clean, maybe it will be good to test your machine with anti-rootkit applications. I suggest AVG, Panda and/or F-Secure BlackLight.

  6. Also, if you still detecting strange behaviors or you want to be sure you’re clean, maybe making a HijackThis log to post here and, specially, scan and submit to on-line analysis the RunScanner log would help to identify the problem and the solution.

  7. After you’re clean, use the immunization of SpywareBlaster or, which is better, the Windows Advanced Care features of spyware/adware cleaning and removal.

  8. Finally, when you’re clean, check for insecure applications with Secunia Software Inspector to update insecure applications and avoid reinfection.

3

Thanks a billion Tech,
I tried to copy the AVAST log for the problems I found on a scan earlier today, but was unable to copy for some reason. The files that I unfortunately deleted, not knowing at the time that it is better to quarantine them were apx 5 basically win 32 adware & a worm on various apparently non critical files. The alleged threats I am getting is “someone is attempting an internet attack attempt & trying to load harmful spyware & a virus on your computer, click here for protection” & “there is a w32 Looksky trojan horse on your computer, click here to remove it immediately”. I will try to see if I can figure out how to use the advanced windows to clean the temp file. I thought I had cleaned it up earlier, manually, but apparently not. AVAST will not handle most of those issues? Did I messup by deleting Norton, should I have kept it afterall for other features?
Thanks a billion.

4

Depends… avast manage quite good some kind of infections.
Others, no. The one you’re experiencing, is most probably due to trojans/spywares.

I think not. I’m an ex Norton user and I feel avast quite better.
You did it right not having two antivirus at the same time in the same computer.

Follow the steps, with patience, and try to get clean 8)

5

Well Super,
I have tried McAffey & Norton both for a number of years & now prefer the results of AVAST, at least until this. I found the system recovery disable, but still working on the windows advance cleanup.
Thanks a billion

6

I suggest you try this tool, RogueRemover, available here http://www.malwarebytes.org/rogueremover.php.

Hopefully it will help with the multiple “popups, alleged trojan horse, multiple virus protection company adds,” etc. as it is likely you have a rogue scum ware trying to get you to pay for the solution to your problems or further infect you.

7

Thank you David,
I will give it a shot to help complete the repair. I am very close, but there seem to be a few loose ends that still need knotting.
Dave

8

If you work through the steps Tech gave one at a time.

However I doub’t onecare will be able to do anything about the bogus trojan notifications.

The alleged threats I am getting is "someone is attempting an internet attack attempt & trying to load harmful spyware & a virus on your computer, click here for protection" & "there is a w32 Looksky trojan horse on your computer, click here to remove it immediately".

That is the speciality of rogue remover.

Welcome to the forums.