May have a laptop virus. grrrrr or is just playing hell with

[The Ben]

as above really, If I do a Norton csan it says I have not. But every so often a security warning comes up saying that a virus has been detected, a 'tojan horse' to be specific called a 'downloader'. it says the file cannot be opened so I ok it, then it says it has deleted it, so I ok that. I randomly get pop ups comming up even though norton has a pop up blocker on it and so does my yahoo tool bar and the buggers seem to still come up! My web pages keep randomly freezing then nothing and have the ctl + ALT + del to get rid of it!!! This also happend yesterday and everything was running fine until then!

Also what I noticed yesterday on my quick tray thing it told me that my windows updater was turned off, the logo was a red shied type thing with the cross thorugh it, but clicking on it brought a box up saying it was turned off. when I clicked to turn it on, a box came up saying that it could not be done from this location and that I should try to turn it on via control panel!!! ON doing so via the control panel it said that it was turned on even though the quick try icon said it was turned off... hmmmmm

Im hoping I have not ny spyware on here, though the spyware blocker is turned on, having said that, it doesnt mean anything according to previous behaviour by my comp.

anyway, as you can see, I probably know sweet FA about this shizzel... so does anyone know of a virus scanner etc that is better than norton and can sort my comp out, or at least make sure there is no shhit on here.. I tried AVG but it appear you have to pay now!!! doh!

[andyquantum]

Expect to meet the Computer Section shortly...

Avast is alright, probably dont want to have more than one scanner on the PC at the same time though. Have a look at http://housecall.antivirus.com and do an online scan first

You'll probably uncover some spyware somewhere

[tribbles]

The Ben said:

as above really, If I do a Norton csan it says I have not. But every so often a security warning comes up saying that a virus has been detected, a 'tojan horse' to be specific called a 'downloader'. it says the file cannot be opened so I ok it, then it says it has deleted it, so I ok that. I randomly get pop ups comming up even though norton has a pop up blocker on it and so does my yahoo tool bar and the buggers seem to still come up! My web pages keep randomly freezing then nothing and have the ctl + ALT + del to get rid of it!!! This also happend yesterday and everything was running fine until then!

That's quite bad - although there are some sites that seem to get around blockers. Also, some sites produce "you have a trojan" box to trick you into downloading a trojan (NEVER click on these).

The Ben said:

Also what I noticed yesterday on my quick tray thing it told me that my windows updater was turned off, the logo was a red shied type thing with the cross thorugh it, but clicking on it brought a box up saying it was turned off. when I clicked to turn it on, a box came up saying that it could not be done from this location and that I should try to turn it on via control panel!!! ON doing so via the control panel it said that it was turned on even though the quick try icon said it was turned off... hmmmmm

This can happen during start-up while the services are starting - Windows doesn't realise that they're starting, so treats them as not running. By the time you've looked at it, they have started.

I'd look at spyware removal such as AdWare as the next step.

[The Ben]

tribbles said:

The Ben said:

as above really, If I do a Norton csan it says I have not. But every so often a security warning comes up saying that a virus has been detected, a 'tojan horse' to be specific called a 'downloader'. it says the file cannot be opened so I ok it, then it says it has deleted it, so I ok that. I randomly get pop ups comming up even though norton has a pop up blocker on it and so does my yahoo tool bar and the buggers seem to still come up! My web pages keep randomly freezing then nothing and have the ctl + ALT + del to get rid of it!!! This also happend yesterday and everything was running fine until then!

tribbles said:

That's quite bad - although there are some sites that seem to get around blockers. Also, some sites produce "you have a trojan" box to trick you into downloading a trojan (NEVER click on these).

hmmm well I thought that, but it seemed genuine, but I guess they are not made to look fake!!! Im not really sure what a downloader tojan horse is though, doesnt sound something that I want in my laptop!!!

The Ben said:

Also what I noticed yesterday on my quick tray thing it told me that my windows updater was turned off, the logo was a red shied type thing with the cross thorugh it, but clicking on it brought a box up saying it was turned off. when I clicked to turn it on, a box came up saying that it could not be done from this location and that I should try to turn it on via control panel!!! ON doing so via the control panel it said that it was turned on even though the quick try icon said it was turned off... hmmmmm

tribbles said:

This can happen during start-up while the services are starting - Windows doesn't realise that they're starting, so treats them as not running. By the time you've looked at it, they have started.

Ye I did think this, but I restated my laptop about 5 times trying to get it to sort itself out, but it didnt until later on this eve... hmmm. Anyway its gone off now so hopefully thats sorted now.

what good free spyware progs are there???

[sstein]

The Ben said:

tribbles said:

The Ben said:

as above really, If I do a Norton csan it says I have not. But every so often a security warning comes up saying that a virus has been detected, a 'tojan horse' to be specific called a 'downloader'. it says the file cannot be opened so I ok it, then it says it has deleted it, so I ok that. I randomly get pop ups comming up even though norton has a pop up blocker on it and so does my yahoo tool bar and the buggers seem to still come up! My web pages keep randomly freezing then nothing and have the ctl + ALT + del to get rid of it!!! This also happend yesterday and everything was running fine until then!

tribbles said:

That's quite bad - although there are some sites that seem to get around blockers. Also, some sites produce "you have a trojan" box to trick you into downloading a trojan (NEVER click on these).

hmmm well I thought that, but it seemed genuine, but I guess they are not made to look fake!!! Im not really sure what a downloader tojan horse is though, doesnt sound something that I want in my laptop!!!

The Ben said:

Also what I noticed yesterday on my quick tray thing it told me that my windows updater was turned off, the logo was a red shied type thing with the cross thorugh it, but clicking on it brought a box up saying it was turned off. when I clicked to turn it on, a box came up saying that it could not be done from this location and that I should try to turn it on via control panel!!! ON doing so via the control panel it said that it was turned on even though the quick try icon said it was turned off... hmmmmm

tribbles said:

This can happen during start-up while the services are starting - Windows doesn't realise that they're starting, so treats them as not running. By the time you've looked at it, they have started.

Ye I did think this, but I restated my laptop about 5 times trying to get it to sort itself out, but it didnt until later on this eve... hmmm. Anyway its gone off now so hopefully thats sorted now.

what good free spyware progs are there???

Go get a tool called Hijack This, create a log and post it up here

-

Stuart

[Mars]

Welcome to the "AntiVirus 2008" problem. Not sure whether you can call it a virus or spyware but it's a programme that LOOKS LIKE it is genuine anti virus software, which informs you of non-existant virus(es) when in fact the virus is the AntiVirus 2008 "product".

I got rid of it on a few PCs by installing and running a complete scan of Windows Defender and Spybot S&D. Both free to download.

Check first that you have "AntiVirus 2008" heading on your notification window

[DHGTR]

weird, ive got exactly the same thing, found i had 'downloader' and 'trojan.vundo'. you can download 'fixvundo.exe' from the symantec website, unfortunately i still have the pop ups and 'some' very slow websites. strange but some of the bigger/famous websites are still responding normally.

Defender didnt help at all, going to run spybot . . . . .right now!!!!

Edited by DHGTR on Thursday 7th August 22:18

[The Ben]

apparenlty I have 240 spyware(s) on my comp... but to clean them up I need to register/pay!! hmmm

[Onz]

The Ben said:

apparenlty I have 240 spyware(s) on my comp... but to clean them up I need to register/pay!! hmmm

Friend of mine had a similar thing - I downloaded AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy and Windows Defender and let them all run a full scan (not at the same time), got rid of any crap it found, restarted and rescanned, got rid of any other stuff it found and see how you get on - seemed to do the trick, though I did have to run an adaware scan whilst in safe mode to clear one bugger that wouldn't go away!

[sstein]

The Ben said:

apparenlty I have 240 spyware(s) on my comp... but to clean them up I need to register/pay!! hmmm

Most can probably be cleared without any tools. You just need to find out where the files are and how they are being referenced, delete the files and delete those references.

I imagine it will be a bit time consuming though.

-

Stuart

[branflakes]

The Ben said:

apparenlty I have 240 spyware(s) on my comp... but to clean them up I need to register/pay!! hmmm

It lies - get Spybot Search & Destroy, it's free & bloody good:

http://www.safer-networking.org/

[HundredthIdiot]

Avast is very good and free for personal use (including corporate use, kind of - read the terms).

Once you've been infected, there is really no way to be sure you've god rid of the infection except by reinstalling Windows.

However, booting from a different hard drive (with AV software on it) then scanning the old (slaved) drive, should give you reasonable confidence, IMO.

[Technonotice]

mac = no virus's or spyware



pwnd (leetspeak slang term)

[Mars]

Technonotice said:

mac = no virus's or spyware



pwnd (leetspeak slang term)

But the downside is, you have to use a Mac.

[tribbles]

Technonotice said:

mac = no virus's or spyware



pwnd (leetspeak slang term)

Not strictly true. You can have viruses and spyware on pretty much anything.

It's just that Windows is the predominant OS, and more likely to have them developed.

[HundredthIdiot]

Technonotice said:

mac = no virus's or spyware



pwnd (leetspeak slang term)

If your argument is that macs are more idiot-proof security-wise, then it's worth noting that Safari has no anti-phishing protection.

I mostly run Linux, FWIW. But that brings it's own world of pleasures and pain.

[The Ben]

Right, well...

Im just using PC tool Spyware doctor and it came up with 9 threats and 78 infections. Most of the infections were low level risk but the tojion ones were something else (escalating???), that didn't sound good!!!

Got it to delete them, then just running it again and halfway through its telling me I have more threats and infections now!! hmmmmm

Might try one of the suggested ones in this case...

[jesta1865]

HundredthIdiot said:

Avast is very good and free for personal use (including corporate use, kind of - read the terms).

Once you've been infected, there is really no way to be sure you've god rid of the infection except by reinstalling Windows.

However, booting from a different hard drive (with AV software on it) then scanning the old (slaved) drive, should give you reasonable confidence, IMO.

hi, i have just got rid of this on a couple of machines with avast, get rid of norton its pants, but download avast 1st.

then remove norton, get avast to install, and say yes to a boot time scan, say no to the auto reboot.

in the programs area find the antivirus2008 (or 2009 sometimes) .exe file and rename it, it will stop it from reloading next time.

now reboot and when it finds stuff tell it option 2 delete all (i think from memory)

avast anti spyware etc all built in and is consistently better than norton at finding stuff on machines. in fact the only 2 i find better are macafee and sophos, both of which you pay for. you don't need windows defender etc with avast it will just slow you down and do what avast is already doing.

HTH

[scruffy]

sounds like you've acquired antivirus2008 or one of the other variants - they're part of a family of trojans that are usually picked up visiting seemingly innocent websites. the trojan usually makes a couple of copies of itself and settles in your \windows\system32 directory using random names, it also creates several registry entries and displays an icon near your clock, it occasionally throws the odd message about your computer's virus count and invites you to pay £30/$49 etc to download the full version.

It's a pig to remove manually - as soon as you delete one or both of the 'programs' the installer creates new copies, if you're not completely clear, it reclones itself when you reboot.

automatic removal (including the reboot, to disinfect stuff without any windows shell running - antivirus2008+ uses windows explorer as a shield!) is free, I've used AVG, Spybot search and destroy and Adware (not at the same time - and only one is necessary). another tool for neat removal is a known good copy of SmitFraudFix, which runs in its own DOS shell (best to boot PC into safe mode), it kills most running processes (explorer, svchost, etc) then cleans and reboots the pc etc... google it!

antivirus2008/2009 or XP antivirus etc are pretty damn chavvy pieces of software, and probably made by thieving gypsy bd 16 year olds - if it makes you feel better.

Hope this helps...

[scruffy]

if you're considering paying a bit of cash for piece of mind... have a look at Kaspersky.

otherwise, those recommended in other posts are more than sufficient.

and remember, you're not surfing, you're typing...