Back around Christmas time I noticed weird things happening with my computer. Nothing that I could put my finger on, and nothing that happened regularly. Just the occasional "burp". Then, right after Christmas, I tried to Google something. Instead of going to Google, I got a message that the computer was trying to download an "application/octet". No matter what I did I couldn't get to Google. It was more of an inconvenience than anything else at that point. I tried deleting a couple of recent applications and even did a system restore. That worked for a little while, but then, wham!, back to the "application/octet" download. Eventually I tried going to other search engines, and when I would click on a link I would get redirected to other websites.
Realizing at this point that something was definitely amiss, I began to look for help. I came across a place called www.techsupportforum.com. I followed their instructions, posted some scan logs, and waited for help. I was ultimately helped by tetonbob, who helped me determine that there was a trojan on my machine, and together we ran and analyzed some system reports (ok, I ran, he analyzed). In a couple of days the infection was gone and I was good to go.
Or so I thought. About two hours after our final post, I ended up opening a new thread, as my homepages appeared to be redirecting. Tetonbob got involved again, determined that the malware files were still there and ran some more diagnostics. Over the course of the next week and a half, it seems like all I did was download a diagnostic tool, run it, post the report, and wait for my next instructions.
Ultimately, we determined that the computer was "clean" and I could go about my business. But, it took me two weeks of work that I could have spent doing other things, trying to rid my computer of stuff that shouldn't have been there to begin with. At the end of my first post, tetonbob posted a really good list of things to do to keep your computer secure. Take a look at that post here. (everything after "Now that your system is clean...")
And, keep in mind that I was running Anti-Virus software from my ISP, as well as Ad-Aware. It was Spybot S&D that first caught the infection. So, I wasn't surfing naked. But now it's like I'm wearing one of those turn-of-the-(20th)-century all over bathing outfits. Hopefully I'm better protected now. Thanks, tetonbob!
Realizing at this point that something was definitely amiss, I began to look for help. I came across a place called www.techsupportforum.com. I followed their instructions, posted some scan logs, and waited for help. I was ultimately helped by tetonbob, who helped me determine that there was a trojan on my machine, and together we ran and analyzed some system reports (ok, I ran, he analyzed). In a couple of days the infection was gone and I was good to go.
Or so I thought. About two hours after our final post, I ended up opening a new thread, as my homepages appeared to be redirecting. Tetonbob got involved again, determined that the malware files were still there and ran some more diagnostics. Over the course of the next week and a half, it seems like all I did was download a diagnostic tool, run it, post the report, and wait for my next instructions.
Ultimately, we determined that the computer was "clean" and I could go about my business. But, it took me two weeks of work that I could have spent doing other things, trying to rid my computer of stuff that shouldn't have been there to begin with. At the end of my first post, tetonbob posted a really good list of things to do to keep your computer secure. Take a look at that post here. (everything after "Now that your system is clean...")
And, keep in mind that I was running Anti-Virus software from my ISP, as well as Ad-Aware. It was Spybot S&D that first caught the infection. So, I wasn't surfing naked. But now it's like I'm wearing one of those turn-of-the-(20th)-century all over bathing outfits. Hopefully I'm better protected now. Thanks, tetonbob!
