MSN Spyware?

Self ^ | Feb 27, 2004 | self

[OldCorps]

My daughter used AOL IM and MSN hotmail last night. Probably some other stuff too. OS is Windows ME. This morning after booting up i clicked on IExplorer. The computer went to this webpage, showing the usual MSN webpage:

http://www.browser-page.com/home.html

the computer then opened another page:

http://www.adwarehunter.com/creatives/alert1.gif

The crazy thing is, I went back to tools, internet options, and reset my homepage back to the Washington Times, and saved changes. I closed down all other operations and reopened IE. Browser again went back to the MSN homepage. What gives?

Now i'm really mad, so I ran both spybot and lavasoft adaware (not simutaneously) , and neither one picked up anything. Then went to settings...add/install programs...and deleted anything unfamiliar.

This junk still runs when i click IE.

[js1138]

Restore is not a good solution to a spyware infection.

[OldCorps]

bump

[.38sw]

Bookmarking for later. Good info here.

[frankenMonkey]

or perhaps... something else.

[upchuck]

You might give Spyhunter from http://www.enigmasoftwaregroup.com/ a try. It has found stuff on my system that adaware and spybot overlooked, even though the defs were up to date. The Spyhunter scan is free. You have to buy (29.99, I think) the removal tool. But the scanner will tell you the names of the files it found. So just deleting those files may solve your problem.

[RonPaulLives]

You might give Spyhunter from http://www.enigmasoftwaregroup.com/ a try.

Hey, upchuck! Haven't talked to you in a while. Just wanted to let you know that I use Spyhunter here on my job, and it is great. Spent a significant amount of time at work today installing it on a number of machines.

[Tailback]

ping for later

[MD_Willington_1976]

My 18 month old son would have that toy ripped apart in no time flat...

[OldCorps]

thanks steplock for your advice. everything running fine. we'll see if the stuff pops up again.

funny thing is, i've run windows update many times in the past. It would always tell me that i need to install 2 critical updates, (something to IE, i think). every time i downloaded them, i'd go back and see if they took. they didn't.

however, this time i turned off system restore as you suggested, and the update went through. Many thanks, amigo.

regards,

[OldCorps]

btw, you said the program resided in system restore? when i reran adaware, it only found bots in cookies, nothing in restore.

should i go turn on restore now?

thanks again,

[OldCorps]

thanks js, ran the stuff after i did the other fixes. didn't find anything, so i hope everything is ok.

[OldCorps]

Hey folks,

thanks for all the good advice. Getting computer advice is one of the great aspects of FR.

Course i've paid my dues to FR,....cuz me and my family freeped the evil Hildebeast when she wuz here in Atlanta lol.

Regards,

[TruBluKentuckian]

"Get Mozilla Firefox.

I've been playing around with Mozilla and I'm not impressed. I'm MUCH happier with Opera. More features, easier to use, more customizable (is that a word?), better looking and faster.

Opera is the best browser in existance for Windows in my opinion.

[D-fendr_2]

But, of course, it's safe to let an 18 month old run a Wintel box.

[Fizzie]

This same exact thing happened to me on my WORK computer today. It was easy to pinpoint where I acquired the hijacking. My internet was working fine, and running in the background.

Then I opened an email from a coworker, which had a cute little icon of cartoony type guys sitting around a conference table. Then bingo... my Explorer pops up, goes to "MSN" homepage, tells me that if my CD Rom opens up, I've got spyware. Then, my CD Rom opens up! Another window opens up, and tells me to click here to download spyware fix.

Of course, I didn't "Click Here." I called our IS department, and it took them 1 hour to fix through the network. First of all, they said,it was a fake MSN site you were hijacked to. The URL was a spoof. The program I got was acquired through viewing an email, not an attachment. Those cute little cartoony guys came with an innocent enough looking program called Hotbar. IS Dept. says Hotbar gives them fits.

[gatorgriz]

First off Windows ME is a pretty bad OS... I can't tell you how many friends, neighbors, and relatives PC's I've rebuilt and migrated to W2K or WXP; but its a bunch...

AdAware; and Spybot are a good cheap (free) solution.

But what you really need is a good firewall like ZoneAlarm Pro and while you're at it get Zone Alarm's Pest Patrol. I've been using them both for months now, with great results... I think the last time I found spyware on my PC was two or three months ago... Gotta keep your system up to date mind you and run a good virus program too, and keep it updated. I run McAfee 7.1.0 and it does a great job...

[steplock]

I just checked on the MS windows site - yes - turn restore back on...IF all antivurs/anti-spyware/etc say it is ok!

You will not have any restore points since turning it off erases the old ones - they were probably corrupted with the spyware anyway.

[savedbygrace]

later

[OldCorps]

hi steplock

When i tried to download housecall I got the following message:

TrendActiveUpdate did not update successfully. It may result from a busy server or bad network traffic.
Error Code 16.
Error String: Either creating or deleting a directory under the destination directory was not successful, or there was a file access error.

Do you want to retry?

So i tried 3 more times and got the same error message.

I did the scan on c: drive anyway. nothing found.

what do you think?
regards,

[steplock]

Hmmm! It probably was an error on their end - It sounds like a server error.
There have been a ton of people infected the last few days so they are probably overwhelmed right now.

Do you have your Anti-virus loaded and fully updated? You need to check for updates manually every day, or have your program do it automatically (somewhere in Options depending on which program).

If you don't have an updated antivirus program, I highly recommend AVG (FREE!! for home use) including all updates.

1.  Security Test
2.  Virus Scan
3.  AVG AntiVirus
4.  Zone Alarm
5.  Search& Destroy
6.  Ad-Aware