If anybody here could help me with some advice, I'd appreciate it.

Lately, I've been getting crashes when Windows starts*, and something has been
interfering with my web browsing.

Searching with Google or Yahoo never finishes** (it just loads the page for
several minutes, and then quits).  Other functions of Google and Yahoo (ie,
Google Webmaster Tools, or My Yahoo) work fine.

Downloading files in Firefox gets interrupted (it asks me where to save the
file, but never actually saves - or even begins downloading - it).  Downloading
in IE sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.

I get random popup ads and new tabs opened in both IE7 and Firefox 2, most of
them advertising antimalware software (which I've never heard of, and don't
trust).

I *do* have Safari installed (just to try it out), but I haven't tested for
these symptoms in it yet.

I have both AVG Free AV and Antispyware, and ZoneAlarm firewall installed.  I
managed to install Avast last night, and performed a boot-time scan, which
didn't yield any results.

Before I left for work, I left the machine running complete scans from AVG
(antivirus *and* antispyware), and from Avast.  I'll check the results when I
get home.

Has anybody here had a similar experience, and is able to comment?

BTW, the only software I've installed recently (other than Linux... heh) is MS
Silverlight, which I've since uninstalled.

** These work fine in Linux, so I know its something with the machine and not
the network.

* By googling under Linux, I was able to determine that the crashing process
belonged to Nero Scout, something I didn't even have installed (I only
installed Burning ROM, with none of the extras).  Just to be safe, I
uninstalled Nero, but that hasn't changed anything.

....Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:24:41 EDT, "Chambers" <bdc### [at] yahoocom>
wrote:

>If anybody here could help me with some advice, I'd appreciate it.

What flavour of Windows are you going to reinstall? :)
Have you tried to restore?
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Chambers wrote:
> Has anybody here had a similar experience, and is able to comment?

My only comment is this: I have never seen anyone successfully clean up 
a virus infection on a multi-user version of Windows, other than wiping 
and reinstalling from scratch. If it turns out it *is* intentionally 
malicious software rather than just Windows ;-) I'd suggest you scrounge 
up your install disks for everything, unless you only use that machine 
for stuff where you wouldn't mind having a key-logger installed.

(For that matter, the three or four times I've seen a UNIX system 
compromised, that always got zeroed and reinstalled too, but those were 
all work servers with customer data on them and stuff, so you really 
couldn't be too careful there.)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Stephen <mcavoysAT@aolDOTcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:24:41 EDT, "Chambers" <bdc### [at] yahoocom>
> wrote:
>
> >If anybody here could help me with some advice, I'd appreciate it.
>
> What flavour of Windows are you going to reinstall? :)
> Have you tried to restore?
> --
>
> Regards
>      Stephen

:(

I'm dual booting to Linux anyway, maybe it's time to go cold turkey...

....Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:38:36 EDT, "Chambers" <bdc### [at] yahoocom>
wrote:

>
>I'm dual booting to Linux anyway, maybe it's time to go cold turkey...

Maybe, indeed. But I would fix my Windows first. Just in case :) 
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Chambers <bdc### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> I have both AVG Free AV and Antispyware

  Did you run the antivirus and the spyware scanners from safe mode?

  Have you tried with ad-aware and spybot s&d? It probably wouldn't hurt
to try.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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web.4815ec39b493a40f261d9700@news.povray.org...
> Has anybody here had a similar experience, and is able to comment?

Look for a rootkit
http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx

My dad's laptop caught one once, it took me a couple of hours to understand 
what was going on, but Blacklight took care of it immediately.

G.


-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer art
- Posters

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On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:24:41 -0400, Chambers wrote:

> If anybody here could help me with some advice, I'd appreciate it.
> 
> Lately, I've been getting crashes when Windows starts*, and something
> has been interfering with my web browsing.
> 
> Searching with Google or Yahoo never finishes** (it just loads the page
> for several minutes, and then quits).  Other functions of Google and
> Yahoo (ie, Google Webmaster Tools, or My Yahoo) work fine.
> 
> Downloading files in Firefox gets interrupted (it asks me where to save
> the file, but never actually saves - or even begins downloading - it). 
> Downloading in IE sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.
> 
> I get random popup ads and new tabs opened in both IE7 and Firefox 2,
> most of them advertising antimalware software (which I've never heard
> of, and don't trust).
> 
> I *do* have Safari installed (just to try it out), but I haven't tested
> for these symptoms in it yet.
> 
> I have both AVG Free AV and Antispyware, and ZoneAlarm firewall
> installed.  I managed to install Avast last night, and performed a
> boot-time scan, which didn't yield any results.
> 
> Before I left for work, I left the machine running complete scans from
> AVG (antivirus *and* antispyware), and from Avast.  I'll check the
> results when I get home.
> 
> Has anybody here had a similar experience, and is able to comment?
> 
> BTW, the only software I've installed recently (other than Linux... heh)
> is MS Silverlight, which I've since uninstalled.
> 
> ** These work fine in Linux, so I know its something with the machine
> and not the network.
> 
> * By googling under Linux, I was able to determine that the crashing
> process belonged to Nero Scout, something I didn't even have installed
> (I only installed Burning ROM, with none of the extras).  Just to be
> safe, I uninstalled Nero, but that hasn't changed anything.
> 
> ....Chambers
> www.pacificwebguy.com

I got a similar problem caused by the latest version of Vundo, Vundo.D. 
Nasty little trojan horse, I realized it was there when normally sane 
sites opened several pop-ups. AVG missed it, Trend Micro's Housecall 
found 2 dlls it was using but it recreated those when I rebooted. I know 
how it got in, I was stupid and trusted a file I shouldn't. It wasn't 
communicating out on it's own, so the fire wall never saw it.

Not saying that's what got to your PC, but the symptoms sound very 
similar.

Post a reply to this message

Sabrina Kilian <ykg### [at] SUCKSvtedu> wrote:
> I got a similar problem caused by the latest version of Vundo, Vundo.D.
> Nasty little trojan horse, I realized it was there when normally sane
> sites opened several pop-ups. AVG missed it, Trend Micro's Housecall
> found 2 dlls it was using but it recreated those when I rebooted. I know
> how it got in, I was stupid and trusted a file I shouldn't. It wasn't
> communicating out on it's own, so the fire wall never saw it.
>
> Not saying that's what got to your PC, but the symptoms sound very
> similar.

How did you remove it?

....Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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"Chambers" <bdc### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> How did you remove it?
>
> ....Chambers
> www.pacificwebguy.com

Never mind, I think I've fixed the problem.  After trying several products, AVG
8 seems to have finally killed the infestation.

Definitely not a good advertisement for AVG 7, though, letting the virus on to
begin with.

Now I'm *definitely* thinking of switching OSs permanently.

....Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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