HELP! Trojan Infection

[vinnym86]

I come to you for help, again. The following is a briefing, followed by useless ranting.

So my computer is normally clean. I used to have NOD32 and some kind of registry cleaner about 2 years ago after advise from this very board. long story short, re-format, McAfee instead, 2 hard drives (1 purely storage).

Lately, my computer has been infected. Ran McAfee, no bite. uninstall! got n ran ad-aware. found some threats n deleted them. restart. computer is still effed. got newest NOD32, updated, scanned, found 4 trojans, deleted. reboot. my computer is still effed.

I'm almost sure AOL IM caused this. I started getting spam for the first time via IM since... i dunno a good 6 or 7 years. then all of a sudden, slow performance, porn-filled pop-ups, fake virus-protection alert windows, and my "automatic update has been shut-off". I try to turn it back on and windows says "no, fuck you, do it the hard way and go to control panel > system > automatic update and turn it on there. I go there, and it says its on. ok, so i turn it off, apply, turn it on, apply... and i still have the little red sheild bubble with an 'x' on it in my task bar telling me "hey, i'm here to help!"

it's late, i'm irate, and i'd like to castrate the malicious virgin who created and gave me this virus. all i want to do is check my facebook or the latest news, but apparently it seems Fling.com has some sexy 18-year-olds living in my town that want to hook up with me! YAY!! took me long enough to get to AF, lets hope this post even gets through...

[Oz]

Ahhhhhhh......stop posting on this forum - you'll infect us all.....!!!!




Dude, unless you already have a good idea how to fix this (repair install, disable system restore, msconfig, firewall with outbound blocked, Hitman Pro etc) which IS a road we can go down, the best advice I can give you is this:


Backup Your Data

Scan it on another computer for infections

FORMAT C:\

Reinstall Windows and start from scratch, this time following proper prevations - anti virus, anti spyware - anti rootkit, regular automated backups, frequent patching etc.

Start again, and hopefully it'll all go better this time.

Seriously consider installing Ubuntu instead.

[Neutrino]

OZ is right you can either do a very thorough clean job which btw will still not be 100% guaranteed to work no matter how hard you try. Or do as he said, backup, scan the backed up files very carefully and clean install.

If you do get back to windows please try to use Firefox + noscript (only allow scripts for sites you are really sure of) to surf the web and stop using that POS AIM IM client, download and use Pidgin to chat online (it will work on all major networks including AIM).

For further security install windows or even better ubuntu on a virtual machine and do all insecure activities from there.

As far as installing ubuntu it's also a great idea either as a stand alone install (if you are not a gamer it will most likely serve all your needs - it has Pidgin too) or alongside windows which now it does not even require partitioning with the use of Wubi.

[vinnym86]

Well seeing as all my music, movies, and work is on my 1/2tb 2nd drive, i'll just plug it into an external and scan on my brother's computer. if its clean, its clean and i'm more likely to format, but thing is i rather not. My brother will be able to make plenty more sense of "msconfig, firewall with outbound blocked, Hitman Pro" than i can, so i'll post up later, thanks guys. as for AIM, just un-installed it. I don't know what noscript is, but i do use firefox, always have for last 2 years since i was last on this sub-forum for this kind of help.

(oh, and it seems from my pc that Igor ditched the automotive banner ads for more annoying, flashing, noisy, pornography ads. woohoo!)

[vinnym86]

so im switched to using ununtu, and a 2nd partition using windows, rarely. thanks for the help guys, my brother looked at the advise given and did what he can but in the end i just formatted my c drive and he gave me his ubuntu cd.

[Oz]

Cool, how's it going so far?

[vinnym86]

ununtu's not as user friendly as i thought it would be, but i can see how my brother, probably you guys, or anyone for that matter who knows what is going on in the background can love this OS. Its not a problem, though, i could understand and learn quickly if i wanted to, i simply don't have my old will to learn anymore, but i'll adapt. I love how clean and quick it is, and pidgin is so simple to use. The multiple desktops are a cool feature, even though they've been around forever. i don't really need a use for them as i did when i interned in design engineering and used an old Solaris OS, but its still fun to use for no reason at all and switch around between 4 desktops.

I still don't have any of my old programs, though, so i'll see which OS i'll be using more. i'm going to need to start working on some video editing, burning cd's, compiling even more music, and eventually start using various things for school. its cool i can run both these OS's on one HDD, thanks for all your help, again