Help! Spyware!

Lurker-no-mo' · Star Player Joined: 17 Jun 2002 Posts: 2799

My computer seems to be full of spyware - lots of popups, changed homepage, etc. - and though I've been on the phone w/ Microsoft for ever...things don't seem to be getting better.

I went to safety.live.com, and the scan told me I had some high-security threat type of spyware. It cleaned up alot of the stuff, but was unable to clean the really bad stuff.
Tried Ad-Aware and Ewido...and...no cigar.

Any ideas you geniouses out there?
_________________
Detective Winters: "I've never really studied the female genitalia."
--------------------------------------------
Ron Artest: "I'm a big fan of the Nobel Peace Prize"

SenorJefe · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 6:51 am Post subject:

Give "Spybot - Search & Destroy" a shot. It fantastic as far as free spyware removers go. Most of them will scan for you, but only a limited number of deletions. If you don't have a virus scanner, download AVG Free. Both of these programs can be found at www.download.com
_________________
Free advertising in Jefe's signature. Inquire within.

uberzev · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 7:07 am Post subject:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/
_________________
Lakers Gonna Lake

Zhengi · Star Player Joined: 06 Sep 2004 Posts: 6445

You need 4 programs.

To scan for spyware:

Adaware
Spybot

To prevent spyware:
Spywareblaster
Mozilla Firefox
_________________
I'm like a Hadouken, down-right Fierce!

lakersfreak · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 8:03 am Post subject:

To add to Zhengi's excellent advise, get adaware and spybot and install them.

Then reboot in Safe Mode.

Run Adaware on fullscan, let it find and get rid of what it can. This will take some time.

Reboot in Safe Mode.

Run Spybot and let it find and get rid of what it can.

Reboot.

Always make sure you do the live updates first.

Dump IE and use Firefox.

Make sure your firewall is running.

Be really careful of the 'freebies' you download, like smilies, etc..
_________________
Forget carbon, reduce your government footprint

SenorJefe · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 8:06 am Post subject:

^agreed. Avent browser is my new favorite...although firefox certainly provides secure browsing.
_________________
Free advertising in Jefe's signature. Inquire within.

The Dagger · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 9:12 am Post subject:

I have this same problem. My homepage is hardwired to this spyware website. There is no way to change it, I've tried everything. This spyware page claims that I need to buy there program in order to clean up what they destroyed. WTF? They install the spyware and now try and blackmail me into paying them to have it removed?

Will the above advice work for this too? Anyone?

Socks · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 9:34 am Post subject:

Unfortunately new spyware comes out so fast that no one spyware removal application can possibly handle them all. You also need to be careful because some so called spyware removal apps out there are actually spyware themselves.

As a few people above have mentioned, Spybot and Adaware are great and free. I would also recommend getting the Microsoft Spyware removal app, and Webroot's SpySweeper - you can get both on 30 day free trial, so they'll help you wipe out what you have. I really like SpySweeper, it's been the most effective of those I've seen.

Another tool out there is Bazooka Spyware Scanner, which you can get for free. This tends to turn up a lot of hidden stuff and will give you instructions on how to manually go into your registry and pick off the spyware files. Only use this if you're comfortable working in your registry. Accidentally deleting stuff in your registry that you shouldn't can be pretty damaging.

One other thing I'd recommend is going to the Trend Micro website and use their House Call app. This is an online virus scanner that will help you out quite a bit and is also free. They also freely provide something called CW Shredder which is designed to destroy CoolWebSearch, which is a common, nasty piece of spyware that does what a some of you describe above (hijack your homepage, pop up ads, etc.). If any of your spyware scanners pick up CoolWebSearch, use this.

I know that's a lot, but like I said, there's unfortunately no one cure-all solution. At minimum you should have Spybot and Adaware, but SpySweeper is the best IMO and does a good job of blocking as well.

chef · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 9:39 am Post subject:

www.hitmanpro.de

Works like magic.

lakersfreak · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 11:59 am Post subject:

ocho · Retired Number Joined: 24 May 2005 Posts: 53836

www.apple.com/switch

_________________
14-5-3-12

Lurker-no-mo' · Star Player Joined: 17 Jun 2002 Posts: 2799

Update:

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much you guys!
Why is it that I got better advice here than from the 254 calls I made to Microsoft?

Culling advice from here and there, this is what I did: in safe mode I ran CCleaner, Ad-Aware, Spybot and HijackThis. I made sure that they were all updated.

Then returning to normal mode, I ran a full scan w/ Windows Defender and AVG.
I made sure to disable Add-ons that are not needed, have the proper security and firewall settings for pop-ups.

So far so good.
Now I'm working on installing Firefox and will look into Webroot Spy Sweeper.

If there's something I forgot to do, please feel free to mention.

Again,
thanks a bunch.
_________________
Detective Winters: "I've never really studied the female genitalia."
--------------------------------------------
Ron Artest: "I'm a big fan of the Nobel Peace Prize"

JayInLA · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 2:37 pm Post subject:

You might also wanna try this as a deterrent for this sort of thing:

www.commonsense.com

And quit clicking on those stupid-ass 'free i-pod' ads you see on porn sites. :roll:

uberzev · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 3:28 pm Post subject:

Colby Briant · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 3:53 pm Post subject:

once you clear all the spyware up use firefox as recommended by others, for all your browsing. i only use IE sometimes when necessary if sites dont work right in firefox (which is rare, but it happens). plus firefox has the greatest addons. they have ad blocking extensions which will strip out ads from a web site and also flash blocking addon that will strip out any flash from a web site. flash will only load if you ask it to. hundreds of other cool extensions are also available for better browsing.

lakersfreak · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 6:46 pm Post subject:

Glad u got it fixed
_________________
Forget carbon, reduce your government footprint

The Dagger · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 9:12 am Post subject:

lakersfreak · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 11:47 am Post subject:

throw me a bone, what website is it sending u 2?
_________________
Forget carbon, reduce your government footprint

The Dagger · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 5:50 pm Post subject:

lakersfreak · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 7:14 pm Post subject:

Try this Dag:

http://forums.techguy.org/security/463512-homepage-problem.html

Read it carefully

You can skip over the logs posted there.

Take your time, u should be able to get rid of it.
_________________
Forget carbon, reduce your government footprint

The Dagger · Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 11:41 am Post subject:

The Dagger · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 7:37 pm Post subject:

Dayum L-Freak it worked. Finally after one month of trying to get rid of that pesky virus. Thanks a lot brah.

This seems to be the best one:

http://www.ewido.net/en/download/

I tried Spybot and Adaware but they couldn't fix it.

Thank everyone for the help. This website was also very useful:

http://forums.techguy.org/index.php

Zhengi · Star Player Joined: 06 Sep 2004 Posts: 6445

^^ Prevention is your best friend. Use firefox or an equivalent browser. IE is too dangerous to use.
_________________
I'm like a Hadouken, down-right Fierce!

lakersfreak · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 9:15 pm Post subject:

Glad u got it working.

Hang onto Spybot and Adaware, they can't fix everything but they are very useful.
_________________
Forget carbon, reduce your government footprint

The Dagger · Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 11:44 am Post subject: