I hope you can help. Saturday afternoon my Vista computer exhibited all the conditions I have read about which incicate I had been attached by Malware.
I downloaded and installed hijackthis, but it would not run. Similarly, earlier I was unable to run another antivirus program (MalwareBytes) I had put on a thumb drive and tried to install while in safe mode.
When I first noticed the attack, I saw a Windows Security Center screen with a notice I had a virus. The notice said the Win Firewall was off. I clicked to turn it on, but the button seemed to be disabled. (firewall is actually ON) Another window asked to sell me Malware Defense. It looked like it began to download something. This still happens everytime I boot up. (later I found and uninstalled Malware Defence, The files were gone but the directory and short-cuts remain.) I declined to purchase, but it ran a check for me anyway and reported loads of problems.
It asked if I wanted to uninstall AVG. I said no. Later I found AVG was disabled. Also my OS System Resore points were all distroyed. There now are IE porn shortcuts on my desktop.
I has able to download AVG 9. I could not install it. I inserted Kapersky 2010 CD in safe mode. Could not get the splash screen. I reached the Kapersky exe file through "My Computer". I could not run the exe. I downloaded a copy of MalwareBytes on another computer, and tried to install it via a thumb drive on the infected one. Would not work.
Now I get periodic virus security alerts. I believe they really come from MS defender. (During all this I think I may have turned on MS defender. It was off before.) The alerts are for:
win32Hala.a
Backdoor.win32.agent.ech
Net-worm.win32.DipNet.d
Net-worm.win32.MyTop.t
I have other machines on the same WiFi and am wondering it the virus could transfer from one to the other if turned on at the same time. One is XP, one is Win98.
Thanks for your help.
Harry