Help - nasty malware problem

[crabfoot]

I've picked up a piece of malware and I can't get rid of it. Just to amuse everybody, I'll relate the whole sad tale.

I've recently registered penetratingoil ,co,uk, penetrating-oil ,co,uk and penetrating-oil ,com, so I was trying to research for material to put on the sites. You can imagine, that sort of research is going to dredge up some interesting material. I did find an attack site by accident, but Firefox blocked it - or so I thought.

Somehow I've acquired one of those nasty programs used by attack sites - the kind that says you need a virus scan, and installs a large selection to make sure it has something to find. Now, strange things happen during searches (both Google and Bing, with both Firefox and Safari). Mostly, they function normally. Then, once in a while I will click on a link and be taken to a completely different (and apparently normal) corporate site - not a porn site.
So I close the tab, search again, and I'm back to normal. But soon after, I will click on a link and get the malware link appearing - " you have a virus, go to this site for a scan".

Well, I'm still working. If I drop the line and click on OK, it can't take me to the site and I can get rid of it until next time. Or I can alt-ctrl-del and close the browser. Depending on how long it is active when it pops up, I get a variety of viruses and trojans installed if I don't lose the line quickly. I've also had windows pop up spontaneously a few times, taking me to legit gaming sites.

I'm using a patched OEM version of XP because I'm not giving Microsoggy the smell of a fart. Unfortunately, if I try to use Norton, it takes out the patch during installation (is that a dirty trick or what?), so I'm using Avast! - it is removing the viruses, but it can't find the malware, and neither can I.

Help!

PS: as I clicked to make this post, I got a pop-up taking me to one of those sites. Avast detected the incoming virus, and dropped the connection. LOL where is this hiding?

 

[Skinner]

Seek and Destroy and HiJackThis maybe your best help

 

[Tyrannical]

Malwarebytes has never let me down yet for this type of thing and i've used it on many peoples computers, worth a try imo.

Also once it's found and dealt with turn off and then back on again system restore, the nasty buggers hide out in the restore files as well sometimes and this deletes all your restore points and starts afresh.

 

[scooter]

Malwarebytes is good. Sorted me out with the same problem.

Here is a link to a good post about the same.
Virus problems? Help - CNET Spyware, viruses, & security Forums


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[scooter]

If all else fails, spend £27 quid and reformat.

MS Windows XP Home incl. SP2 Win - Full UK Edition on eBay (end time 02-Dec-09 19:47:07 GMT)


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[crabfoot]

That XP is what I am using, it only cost me a tenner.

Try to reg it, and Microsoft will tell you that you have to pay over £64 - and they won't tell you that they have obsoleted it, or that the service pack is not available. It will work for a month without registering or patching it, then it will lock you out.

The Germans are a quiet and efficient people. They will quietly and efficiently RIP YOU OFF, to quote Bob Henrit.

 

[scooter]

On the contrary. I have purchased from this gentleman, the very same thing for my brothers pc.

He bought a system from Mesh that had XP home installed and came with a disk. He ended up with a complete mess (virus/trojans, you name it). So the best thing to do was a reinstall.

What Mesh don't tell you is their OEM XP is useless. When you try to do a fresh intsall it kept coming back as "Cannot continue. The version you are trying to install is older than the version running"

Yes, its older because he had since installed service pack 2 and 3.

It would let us uninstall no3 but wouldn't for no2.


The only way to get round this was to get an unregistered XP Home edition with service pack 2. So I bought one off of this guy. It came in 4 days and worked great. Brand new, sealed disk complete with instal key (sticker).

Registerd fine online and gets all upgrades. For £27 it will solve all your future hassles.

.

 

[crabfoot]

So - I'm apologising to Scooter for that error - and thanking everyone for their help.

The free version of Adaware did not sort out the problem. Perhaps one of the paid for versions might have done it.

Spybot Search and Destroy found a few things left over, and killed them.

I think the system is working OK now, so I haven't tried Malwarebytes.

Many thanks to all for sorting out a confused old f@rt.

 

[Skinner]

I usually use Spybot and HiJackThis because both was wrote by people who used to hack and find exploits in some capacity so even their basic arcitecture was so far ahead of the other companies it was almost like a terminator sent back in time which is why massive companies bought most of the people and their code like this out.

There is very little that can evade or stand a chance against the programs made by black hat gone white