Any of you ever had a virus or major Spyware?

[AngelnSnuffy]

It's been real fun too:grumpy:. I was getting major popups about two months ago. I ran Spybot multiple times. It didn't get rid of the problem. Now, there's different ones:X.

As of Tues night, my desktop is screwed with anti-spyware warning, all black screen with "Warning! and blah, blah, blah after it and getting alerts at the bottom that are bogus and a few popups for fake Spyware removal programs that I just close out. McAfee has gotten rid of most of it and protecting me from getting more Trojans. Hubby finally got that downloaded, it wouldn't let us even get to it to download for some time.

I've been reading on this awesome site all day called http://www.bleepingcomputer.com. It has a forum and tutorials, etc. It's great. Problem is, I am afraid to go into safe mode as they suggest doing to run your antispy program, I may not get it back into normal mode:?.

My IT guy at work said to bring it in on Monday and he'll look at it. I hope he gets whatever is on here off. From what I've read, it sounds like he can. I'm just really lucky right now that this thing hasn't crashed altogether. As we have this problem, we aren't able to hit control, alt, del, to get to task manager to see what's running to try to figure out where they're hiding.

I was doing some more reading and was able to get a list by going to run and typing in some stuff. Yay. I'm proud I even figured that much out. AT least, since I saved that txt file, my IT guy can see what was running at the time. There is a way to go further into detail, but I got confused.

It totally sounds like Malware to me. We'll see. Wish us luck!

Also, since adding McAfee, I now even have a site advisor, which tells you in a search, what sites are safe with a green check mark, and red for run as fast as you can away from it. This site came up green!

Just thought I'd pass along some info to you all, in case any of you ever encounter a virus, spyware or any infection issues.

So, any of you ever gone through this? Fix it sucessfully? What problems did you encounter?

(We've lost two harddrives this year, sheesh! The last time, I took the drive into my IT guy at work, he connected it to his reader, nothing. It was done for.)

P.S. If worse came to worse, I have a lappy as well that I can use, thank goodness. But, hubby was afraid that I got the stuff from RO, not:X.

 

[aurora369]

Safe mode will go away as soon as you restart. Windows is programmed to go to your regular mode when starting, so unless it's already going into safe mode every time you start up, you'll be able to get out just fine.

I would suggest trying it your self and then if something goes wrong your IT guy can fix it. It'll be a good learning experience!

I've gone into safe mode to get rid of spyware/viruses before. My boyfriend used to go to peoples houses and fix that stuff for them. He's also taken lots of classes in school on malicious software.

--Dawn

 

[Becknutt]

I had a really bad virus that NO antivirus could find, but I knew it was there. Finally Kaspersky Anti-virus found it and cleared it. I must have tried 10 differant programs at least.This is the best antivirus out there. If you go to www.Kaspersky.com you can download a 30 day free trial and use it to clean your computer. If you go with the Internet Security Suite there is also a spyware program. I also used it to clear a ton of spyware off of my neighbors computer. They had so much windows would literally take 5 minutes to load.

 

[pamnock]

I went throught it about a year ago. My pc was about 5 years old, so my repairman said to just get a new one.

Pam

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

Thanks Dawn, for the encouragement. I might try it. I'm scared.

 

[lalena2148]

Run your Anti-Virus in Safe mode.

Also download Ad Aware and Spybot. They'll get other things, such as Spyware, off your computer.

Run these in Safe mode as well. Then, restart your computer and it will go to your usual Windows boot like normal.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

lalena2148 wrote:

Run your Anti-Virus in Safe mode.

Also download Ad Aware and Spybot. They'll get other things, such as Spyware, off your computer.

Run these in Safe mode as well. Then, restart your computer and it will go to your usual Windows boot like normal.

We had Spybot, but McAfee isn't compatible with it so we uninstalled it:?. We have Ad Aware, I haven't run that in forever. McAfee does it all. So, best to run that I suppose, but in safe mode. Will it run in Safe Mode?:?

 

[aurora369]

All anti-virus or anti-spyware programs should run it safe mode.

Safe mode will look just like regular mode, except you won't have your back ground and stuff like that. You'll have your start menu and access to all your programs. So you would just open your anti-virus program in safe mode the same way you do in regular mode.

Then run your scans. I would recommend running a couple different programs, as some catch what others don't.

The programs that Ryan really recommends are Spybot Search and Destroy, AVG, and he's used Adaware before too.

Good luck. I really encourage you to give it a try. If it doesn't work, your no further behind, but it'll be a good learning experience for you.

--Dawn

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

I tried getting into safe mode last night, once there, there was another menu with 3 options, all numbers/letters. I had no clue which one to choose:?. Bringing it in Monday for the IT guy to handle. He'll know what to look for to delete, and what to run. I'll let you all know how it goes. Thanks for all the tips. I do agree Dawn about gaining experience, that I need!

 

[JimD]

Every laptop in the house has been trashed by viruses/spyware.:grumpy:
Two had to be completely re-imaged :X

The PC is the only one that I've managed to keep clean.

Running:

NortonViruscan (just switched from MCaffe) You can temporarily disable it if it is not compatible when running the other stuff.

Windows Firewall (on all the time)
Windows Defender (on all the time)
Lavasoft/Adaware (only runs when user prompts)
CCleaner (only runs when user prompts)
Spybot (only runs when user prompts)


I clean out cookies, Internet temp files, and clear historyevery time I log on.

It's best to run in Safe mode as it keeps the malicious applications from running or replicating themselves.

The last spyware I found had been downloaded as a media player by my daughter. She didn't even choose to download it. She clicked on the "x" to close the window and the program automatically downloaded.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

JimD wrote:

The last spyware I found had been downloaded as a media player by my daughter. She didn't even choose to download it. She clicked on the "x" to close the window and the program automatically downloaded.

:shock: That stinks! I try not to download stuff, but just looking at pics on the forum is downloading. So, how long have you been running what you are now and have remained clean? It's scary out there. How often do you defrag? I haven't done that in quite some time, need to remind myself to do that way more often.

I plan on getting CCleaner, Defender and Spybot back after he fixes it.

 

[JimD]

AngelnSnuffy wrote:

I try not to download stuff, but just looking at pics on the forum is downloading.

So, how long have you been running what you are now and have remained clean?

How often do you defrag?

I "view" a lot of stuff on the Internet, but very seldom actually download things to my drive.

I've been running my PC for a long time (3+ years)and have managed to keep it clean.
I run my antispyware programs almost every day and am constantly checking for updates to them. Seldom do they run and not find something.

I can't remember the last time I defraged. I probably should.
When I had the smaller drives, I would run it at least once a week. The larger drives don't seem to need it as much unless there close to capacity.

 

[NZminilops]

Just as a side note, defragging wont do anything for viruses or anything like that. When data is written to the harddrive, it's sort of scattered around on these large metal discs and the heads have to search for the little data packets and it may take a fraction of a second longer than if you'd defragged (or grouped the packets closer) recently. I seriously haven't defragged any computer since about 1999! It's never made enough of a difference for me to bother and it can take hours with a large hardrive.

I don't often get viruses or spyware, I don't know why. I look at the same stuff most people do. I do however totally format the harddrive about once every 6 months and re-install windows, all the programs etc. I have done it so often that it only takes a couple of hours now. My hardrive is partioned (spilt into two drives, sorta) and I keep all my things like pics and personal items on D drive and windows and programs on C drive. That way I don't lose my stuff when I format C.

Mostly how I see people get spyware is by clicking 'ok' to stuff, and programs installing things...like yahoo messenger installing toolbars into the browser, and you don't have to let it do that.

Look into mozilla forefox with adblock maybe? Helps me avoid adware.

If you can get this to work it may help you identify some of the bad programs that are coming up. Go to the start menu, go to run then type in msconfig and press the ok button. Go to the start up tab on the far right and have a look at what runs on startup. If you don't know what any of them are then I wasn't much help, I know what all of the ones that should me in mine are but they'll be different for you.

I don't run anything except avast anti virus. I have tried other things and this was the best for me. That and just getting to learn your computer and how it goes work wonders for me. I scan maybe once a month for stuff and probably only found something 3 or so times in years and years. Although everything except the case isn't original, I've had this computer since I was 17 and I'm 25 now so I know it like the back of my hand .

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

My puter's fixed, Yay:bunnydance:! The guy worked on it all day yesterday. Didn't get done, but now it is. He ran about 4 or 5 things to get rid of all the stuff:shock:. He said the last one he ran did the trick, not sure what that was. I know he said he ran a tool remover as well.

The main problem was that we were just running SBC Yahoo for protection and most of the time it was off. Now I have McAfee, which should cover it all, plus I have the newest version of Spybot.