Laptop, why have you forsaken me? Yes, for all that has been good this week, there has been one recurring problem, that being my laptop has been acting all kinds of virusy.
I forget which day it started, but about a week ago I started getting messages from the network shield of Avast, saying that it had blocked a malicious site. Now if I had been looking at porn at the time, yeah, maybe I could see that. But usually they would start on a regular site and suggest I was trying to connect to a different one, even when I hadn't. I did a little research on the issue and unearthed a couple of tools that I thought would help me. So I downloaded them and ran them and and the pop ujp messages seemed to go way.
So did my home page. Just gone. Instead I would get a captcha that I would have to fill out to see my homepage. I would fill it out and instead of my homepage, another captcha would pop up. My laptop wasn't completely useless mind you, I could still scurry around the web, just not to my homepage.
I took to my internet sleuthing skills and found a web forum that deals with Avast issues. It was there that I met Essexboy. Who he is, I have no idea, but he has proven to be a godsend to this point. I explained my problem on the page and was given some very general directions, download these programs and then post the reports on here and Essexboy will look at them and see if he can help. Apparently he is a techie wizard of some sort, handing out nuggets of wisdom on a few different sites. The only problem for me is that he is in Great Britian, so there is a time difference of 5 or 6 hours or so. When I am at work, his day is half done, when my work day is done,, he whole day is just about finished. So to a degree we had been playing message board tag, I would post my issue, wait for his reply and then follow his instructions, which were very good for a non tech skilled person like myself.
I explained my first issue to him, I had gotten warnings about sites I wasn't visiting, then the home page went all haywire. Even automatic updates had shut down, they couldn't be turned on from the task bar or from the system option in the control panel. So he gave me some instructions, which I followed. Then more instructions, again which I followed and finally a third set of instructions and everything worked, for a day. My automatic updates were back, I could visit my homepage, everything was wonderful.
Then I made a mistake. I was visiting a website regarding comic books and up started the whole malicious site warning all over again. Not as frequent as in the past, where they would pop up in groups of 3 or more every 5 minutes, but given I had seen this pattern develop previously I had a hankering things would not be good, so back to the board I went and I spent a good portion of today fixing my laptop while also trying to get my real job done. It was a long day to say the least, but again Essexboy seems to have come through, no warnings since this afternoon and everything is running okay. He even had me upload a questionable file to a file sharing service, just so he could get a better look at it.
But for now I am on a 24 hr laptop watch, I am to report anything that doesn't seem to be working properly and if all goes smoothly I should be completely back in laptopping order by this time tomorrow. I hope so, I really don't want another week of playing with programs that I don't understand. Besides, one of the updates wiped out my Swagbucks toolbar, so I am losing time chasing anothert Amazon gift card while this thing is on hiatus. I could reload the toolbar, but I want to wait to make sure everything is running properly before slapping on anything new to my computer.
For the blow by blow on what has taken place, you can check out this thread http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=83233.0
and I will go on the record as highly recommending them. The people that post there, at least the administrators, seem to be quite skilled at fixing what I am very good at breaking. But for now I am going to stop, lest I break something else.
also try www.malwarebytes.com and run the free malware software program. If you have anything it will find it.
ReplyDeleteActully MBAM (I am learning the lingo) was one of the reports they asked for, though it was only mediocre in its results. I originally ran it when the network shield warnings were popping up and it, as well as Avast and Lavasoft and all came up with nothing.
ReplyDeleteIt did get some trojans later on, after Essex gave me some directions on things to do, but early on MBAM was as useless as everything else.
ReplyDeleteWow Malwarebytes is one of those that IT guys rely on and I have seen it kick ass. What ever is up with yours has to be a mean bugger. Hope you win the war with this thing.
ReplyDeleteIt is looking good so far, though Essexboy suggested I wait 24 hours to make sure everything is running okay. If so, then we will begin the process of removing all of the tools used to get me back up and running, like OTL and Combofix. Malwarebytes has been helpful at times in this process, and I will be keeping it after we are all done here, but whatever it was that ws messing with my system originally, Malwarebytes was blind to it.
ReplyDeleteMalwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.51.1.1800
www.malwarebytes.org
Database version: 7482
Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3
Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
8/16/2011 11:52:09 PM
mbam-log-2011-08-16 (23-52-09).txt
Scan type: Quick scan
Objects scanned: 168553
Time elapsed: 17 minute(s), 3 second(s)
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 0
Memory Processes Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Memory Modules Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Registry Keys Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Registry Values Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Registry Data Items Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Files Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Ahhh you only did a quick scan though. That will only scan some drives, not all drives.
ReplyDeleteThat is what the IT people asked for, run a quick scan and post the log on the forum. Since they know better than I on such issues, I went ahead with their advice. It was one of three they ask for before they offer any advice on your system should you be having problems, the others are the OTL scan and the aswMBR scan.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. The IT guy who introduced me to malwarebytes told me if in doubt run the long scan. It will find trojans in the dark corners that they hide. If my computer does anything strange I kick off a long scan. Other then that I do the short one about once a week. Facebook is the bane of my existence when it comes to viruses and malware. I think Facebook is malware!
ReplyDeleteI have a pretty good idea where this one came from, I would visit a page called comicbookresources, usually to check out the reviews and read a couple of columns. A few weeks ago they redesigned the page and it no longer worked properly with IE (though it ran okay with Firefox). Everytime you would click on a link, IE would completely restart as the entire site would have to be recovered. I am thinking someone hacked their site and did something nasty to it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I can't run Firefox. Because it has open programming it is prone to attacks and being blind to viruses. People swear by it but if you sign on to government computer systems you can't do it with Firefox running.
ReplyDelete