Hello! I'm having difficulty with an infected computer and I'm not sure even where to begin describing my issues. I was browsing the net a few days ago, not hanging out on any sites that were especially seedy (no 4chan for me) but that were loaded with popups and browser redirects. I knew I shouldn't have pressed my luck but an article that promised me 10 pictures of hilarious home repair failures was too alluring to pass up. Unfortunately, as soon as I clicked it my browser closed and a "helpful" program called AntiMalwareDoctor showed up and told me I had somewhere in the ballpark of ten billion infections. Well, I knew better than to trust it - I've seen the fake antivirus card played before - so I ran MBAM to try to get rid of it. It found 7 infections but the problems still remained.
Here's a list of issues I've had:
-All the browsers I have installed - IE, Firefox, and Safari - take ages to open when first clicked, are prone to popups when open, redirect their Google search results to other pages, and have crashed back to desktop before I can get anywhere multiple times. IE once bluescreened the computer within about 20 seconds of being clicked on.
-Sometimes, when the computer reboots, it plays the Windows logon chime, but displays only a black screen. The cursor is visible but the task manager cannot be opened. Pressing Alt-Tab reveals that two windows are open, but neither can be displayed. At this point a hard reboot is necessary.
-Windows just doesn't quite look right. I still have the Windows Aero glass effect in the title bar of most windows, but internal elements (like the column headers in a window, scroll bars, and some buttons) look like they're in classic Windows 95/98 mode. The whole UI appears unpolished
-Once and only once, upon reboot I was told that my copy of windows was not genuine. That error disappeared after the next reboot.
-The machine as a whole just seems slow. I saw the post that said that slowness wasn't usually attributable to malware, but I'm listing it as a symptom because the computer seems remarkably more sluggish than it did a week ago. It's a big change in performance in just a couple of days' time.
I know the instructions asked for a DDS log but I don't seem to be able to run it. I turned it on before I left for work this morning and when I came home it still had not opened any logs for me to post. Since it says the scan should take under 3 minutes and I'd let it run 10 hours, I'm going to consider that anomalous. So, I'm sorry I haven't anything apart from an error report, but hopefully someone can help. Thank you in advance for anything anyone can do.
I also have a question about P2P software as mentioned in the Announcement. I know a lot of people use BitTorrent and the like to download illegally but my only purpose in adding BitTorrent was to download music from a site called OC Remix. I know that a torrent download could contain anything regardless of what it SAYS it contains and that I could give myself a trojan that way, but if I'm using the software to get legitimate and legal content then I'm not in any danger, right? If not, please let me know... I don't want to do anything that will damage my own macine.
Here's everything I've run in order to try to kill this thing myself:
MBAM - Multiple times, full and quick scans, in safemode and normal mode.
Avast Antivirus - Full Scan
Spybot Search and Destroy - Full Scan
SuperAntiSpyware - Full Scan
Thanks, I know that was a pretty big infodump I dropped on you all. I'm extremely grateful in advance for any help that anyone can provide!
Here's a list of issues I've had:
-All the browsers I have installed - IE, Firefox, and Safari - take ages to open when first clicked, are prone to popups when open, redirect their Google search results to other pages, and have crashed back to desktop before I can get anywhere multiple times. IE once bluescreened the computer within about 20 seconds of being clicked on.
-Sometimes, when the computer reboots, it plays the Windows logon chime, but displays only a black screen. The cursor is visible but the task manager cannot be opened. Pressing Alt-Tab reveals that two windows are open, but neither can be displayed. At this point a hard reboot is necessary.
-Windows just doesn't quite look right. I still have the Windows Aero glass effect in the title bar of most windows, but internal elements (like the column headers in a window, scroll bars, and some buttons) look like they're in classic Windows 95/98 mode. The whole UI appears unpolished
-Once and only once, upon reboot I was told that my copy of windows was not genuine. That error disappeared after the next reboot.
-The machine as a whole just seems slow. I saw the post that said that slowness wasn't usually attributable to malware, but I'm listing it as a symptom because the computer seems remarkably more sluggish than it did a week ago. It's a big change in performance in just a couple of days' time.
I know the instructions asked for a DDS log but I don't seem to be able to run it. I turned it on before I left for work this morning and when I came home it still had not opened any logs for me to post. Since it says the scan should take under 3 minutes and I'd let it run 10 hours, I'm going to consider that anomalous. So, I'm sorry I haven't anything apart from an error report, but hopefully someone can help. Thank you in advance for anything anyone can do.
I also have a question about P2P software as mentioned in the Announcement. I know a lot of people use BitTorrent and the like to download illegally but my only purpose in adding BitTorrent was to download music from a site called OC Remix. I know that a torrent download could contain anything regardless of what it SAYS it contains and that I could give myself a trojan that way, but if I'm using the software to get legitimate and legal content then I'm not in any danger, right? If not, please let me know... I don't want to do anything that will damage my own macine.
Here's everything I've run in order to try to kill this thing myself:
MBAM - Multiple times, full and quick scans, in safemode and normal mode.
Avast Antivirus - Full Scan
Spybot Search and Destroy - Full Scan
SuperAntiSpyware - Full Scan
Thanks, I know that was a pretty big infodump I dropped on you all. I'm extremely grateful in advance for any help that anyone can provide!
)
(Selecting Uninstall application on close if you so wish)