Tim Nelson Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 Ugh...I started getting this spyware yesterday. It's pretty ugly. I can remove it with Ad-Aware, but it will come back an hour or two later. So it's hidden itself deep in my computer I'm afraid. It must be fairly new, because I can't find much help on it anywhere. The only place that does talk about it is a forum for ultra geeks, which I unfortunately am not. They talk about it and how to remove it, but not in terms I can easily understand. I guess I'll try to work my way through it. But be careful everyone! I'm running XP SP2, have a registry blocker, firewall, Anti-virus, so I thought I was safe. This thing still got through so who knows what else is out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted June 19, 2005 Share Posted June 19, 2005 What are you seeing? I use SpyBot Search & Destroy (free!) which works fairly well, but no program is perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted June 19, 2005 Author Share Posted June 19, 2005 Well what it does is lodges itself in your system tray and then it says it has performed a scan of your computer and found a bunch of spyware or viruses. Then it asks you if you want to remove them (then I think they want you to give them money). If you say no, then you are stuck with a nasty blue screen that says "System Stopped - due to a serious malfunction. Spyware activity detected. It is recommended to use spyware removal tool before using computer", which is a complete outrage because they are the ones that put it there in the first place. I ran ad aware and made the blue screen go away, but it still locked out your wallpaper. Then about an hour later the Spy Sheriff was back again. After than I ran everything I could think of to get rid of it....Ad Aware, Spybot, Ewido, Ccleaner, plus a couple others I think. So far it has not come back again, but the background/wallpaper is still locked out. I'm not an expert at registry cleaning, so I don't want to mess with Hijack This. I would probably do some major damage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fernando Lino Posted June 19, 2005 Share Posted June 19, 2005 I'm using Microsoft anti-spyware...It works well and it's free my anti-virus & firewall is Bullguard 5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted June 19, 2005 Author Share Posted June 19, 2005 I'm using Microsoft anti-spyware... Haha, I forgot to mention I used that too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted June 19, 2005 Share Posted June 19, 2005 Haha, I forgot to mention I used that too! Hire someone to deal with it. Do you do your own plumbing? There are people who are good at this stuff. Now that you're in over your head (I would be, too) on a piece of critical equipement to your business call in a specialist so you can clear your head and get back to productive work. Right now you are probably losing more money in lost worktime than you would pay to have someone fix the mess for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 19, 2005 Share Posted June 19, 2005 read this important thread from another forum. http://www.maxforums.org/thread.aspx?tid=315240 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted June 19, 2005 Share Posted June 19, 2005 Tim Two things are obvious: Stop using IE and get Firefox... and don't use your workstation to look at porn. Have a nice day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted June 19, 2005 Author Share Posted June 19, 2005 read this important thread from another forum. http://www.maxforums.org/thread.aspx?tid=315240 Ahh, information overload!!! Everyone has their own advice...use this, use that. Well, I don't know if I've gotten rid of it completely, but I think it's well contained for now. If it comes back I'll just have my IT friend come and work it out like Ernest said. And Ernest: 1) I AM using Firefox. Unfortunately, not all sites work with it and I have no other choice but to use IE. And I think there must also be a security hole in MSN Messenger because every time I open it up I usually get a pop up ad or two. 2) Umm,..ok! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted June 19, 2005 Share Posted June 19, 2005 It's always the porn sites that get you. And don't be terribly afraid of getting into the registry. You should be able to search for the name of the software and find the key and delete it. Plus, if you screw up too bad, windows has a backup that it makes that it will restore if you screw something up too bad. Or, take the computer to your local computer joint and have them do it. Shouldn't cost too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abicalho Posted June 20, 2005 Share Posted June 20, 2005 Find the name of the spyware thing and google it. Odds are you'll find instructions for removal, even though the softwares cannot remove it - this is usually because those things are pretty good at hiding themselves. My personal rules are: don't install Java or ANY plugins, and don't use IE unless it's superverymuchextremelly necessary. All the spyware I ever got came from within Java and from some type of advanced Flash-type plugin - I don't have those anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted June 20, 2005 Author Share Posted June 20, 2005 Find the name of the spyware thing and google it. Odds are you'll find instructions for removal, even though the softwares cannot remove it - this is usually because those things are pretty good at hiding themselves. Yeah, thats why I think this is a fairly new thing. I googled it and there was a relatively small amount of sites that talked about it at all. I think you are right about Java too. For some reason I think that might have had something to do with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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