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Malware Infection

gtc

Philosopher
G
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
7,110
My Father-In-Law's computer seems to be infected with malware of some kind.

I keep getting pop-ups appearing for
a website called security-notifications . com and em.pc-on-internet . com

Odd cookies are also appearing on the computer.

I have run ad-aware and it found and deleted several files (mostly cookies) and I have deleted any programs that seemed iffy but the problem persists.

I have done a google search and looked at the advice that is online but it is beyond my technical expertise.

Any advice?
 
Sounds like he clicked on one of those bogus "your computer is infected!" pop-ups. There is a particularly evil malware that loads itself when you do this. It disguises itself as anti-malware and even performs bogus scans and gives you bogus reports showing your computer clean after the scan. meanwhile, in the background, more malware gets added and more pop-ups appear directing you to pay for the premium version to really kill the malware.

The majorgeeks link from wudang is a lifesafer. Use it. I've found this particular "run and read me first" thread from Major Geeks to be very helpful: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407 It gives you links to several useful tools.
 
gtc said:
My Father-In-Law's computer seems to be infected with malware of some kind.

I keep getting pop-ups appearing for
a website called security-notifications . com and em.pc-on-internet . com

Odd cookies are also appearing on the computer.

I have run ad-aware and it found and deleted several files (mostly cookies) and I have deleted any programs that seemed iffy but the problem persists.

I have done a google search and looked at the advice that is online but it is beyond my technical expertise.

Any advice?
Click to expand...

There's a good program called "Hijack This!". It was recommended to me by the people from www.avast.com. I don't know where exactly you download it but if you try the avast forum, they should be able to tell you.
 
Hijack This! is extremely useful, but it can also be very confusing. It doesn't remove malware per se, but lists and allows the removal of just about all non-default-install settings and running programs. It will list everything from default search page to running services to startup programs, and doesn't offer advice on what's desirable and what isn't. It does have a very comprehensive logging function that is great for identifying and removing malware, but it's not exactly user-friendly. It's also well-known enough that some malware will identify it, and hide themselves from a Hijack This! scan.

Another program that works well, and is surprisingly easy to use, is called ComboFix. It's available here, and that page includes a nice tutorial on its use. It's very useful at removing the more aggressive infections that try to anticipate and block more popular removal tools. It doesn't play well with other antivirus programs, though; several of them will identify the methods it uses to remove malware as another infection.

Lastly, a pretty good standby for regular antivirus protection is called AVG Antivirus; it's particularly good at catching browser and search redirectors that the big three (Norton, Mcafee, and Trend Micro) miss.
 
OK,

Thanks everybody.

I have followed the 'run and read me first' guide at Major Geeks (including combofix) and installed the trial version of Kapersky. A lot of different infections were uncovered as I think the computer has been running with no anti-virus and only the Windows firewall for a long time.

Nothing has popped up in the last couple of hours, so hopefully its fixed for now.

Cheers.
 
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