Help I think my browsers been hijacked!

[Grog]

SyracuseWolvrine, Thanks for posting the link to CWShredder. Just today we had a computer at work get hijacked and we started getting all sorts of pop-ups from adult sites. It wouldn't even let us get to our company intranet site. My co-workers were just going to shut it down and call user support on Monday, but I remembered your link and gave it a try. Problem solved. Thanks

 

[sammi]

Just a quick update......DS was up on Sunday and eventually he got my Home Page back but it only lasted for awhile and then the hijacker was back! He's coming tomorrow so we'll see if he can try again.

How can you tell what type of Hijacker it is? I seem to be getting interchanging home pages?

 

[Dan Murphy]

Who knows the web site for the hijacker forum, where they evaluate your system info??

 

[SyracuseWolvrine]

Originally posted by Dan Murphy
Who knows the web site for the hijacker forum, where they evaluate your system info??

http://www.computercops.biz/forums.html ... the "HijackThis" forum is about halfway down the page.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Thanks, SW. Cindy, I would give that a try.

 

[sammi]

Thanks guys I'll head on over there and check it out.

 

[sammi]

Well just a quick update on all this mess!

I ended up switching my browser to Mozzilla and am quite happy with it. I've read up on Mozzilla and it seems pretty safe and updated.

We tried everything all weekend but this Cool websearch does not want to leave our pC so I admit defeat! lol I also was reading about some pretty bad stuff that happened in Russia dealing wiith Trojans being sent to some major websites amd browsers but Mozzilla wasn't involved.

Has anyone managed to "fight this beast"?

 

[HappyMommy2]

Glad to hear some are having some success with this very annoying problem!

After trying just about everything I could, I took the computer to a local "geek" computer repair place to see what they could do. They worked on it for a long time and then sent it home with me for a trial run--it was better, but definitely still hijacked! So I took it back and they put their "best cleanup expert" on it. He was able to fix the problem without wiping everything out. He said the problem was difficult to get rid of and mine was among the worst he had seen, but thankfully all seems to be well now. Wish I had been able to take care of it myself, but I think it was $50 well spent.

Geez, I wish the people who have the brains and energy to come up with these insidious spyware/trojans/viruses would use their powers for good, not evil!

 

[RIDISNEYLOVERS]

I am having problems with my computer too.

Are any of these downloads FREE? I need to try something free because this is my computer at work. We do not have a tech dept. so I have to figure tis out myself - I am not very computer literate in the fixing aspect!!

It is running very slow and I am getting a lot of pop up's - what should I do to fix this problem?

Thanks for your help.

Lisa

 

[KathyTX]

If you suddenly have a new homepage that you didn't set up yourself, or your internet searches lead to odd sites, or you have lots of pop-ups, or you are finding XXX rated URLS in strange places on your machine or in profiles you set up on websites, you've likely got spyware on your machine.

They've affected lots of us recently, and can do aggravating things from slowing down your computer, to redirecting your web searches to sites you didn't want to go to, to populating "home page" fields with XXX sites, and worse...

There are several free and easy to use tools you can download to remove these pests that we've found to be very helpful:

Ad-aware

Spybot - Search and Destroy

CWShredder (probably won't be updated beyond 7/1/04- This is the tool that removes the Cool Websearch pest)

These tools all will identify and help you remove various spyware/adware/malware pests on your PC. Each of them will find some problems that the others don't, so you may want to use all of them.

Each of them has regular updates to their "pest" files. You'll download and install each program. Then you'll want to use the "check for updates" feature on each one to be sure you're using the most current pest profiles, then let each one run and clean off any problems it identifies.

If your homepage has been hijacked with a new homepage, or if the spyware/adware/malware has actually inserted its URL in homepage fields, you'll need to reset these to your preferred pages after you've run the cleanup programs.

Also, it is <font color=red>CRITICAL</font> that you keep your Microsoft operating system and Internet Explorer patches up to date. Microsoft releases new security patches monthly, and you can get the correct ones for your system at www.microsoft.com.

Here's another thread where some of these problems have been discussed recently.

 

[Tina]

The Home Search Assistent is nearly impossible to get rid of. Just do a Yahoo search on it (make special note of the misspelling of Assistent - that's the way the Hijacker spelled it)) and you'll see what I mean. My neighbor got this about a week ago and called me for help. Lucky for her, she computer was only a couple of weeks old and she had little setup on it yet. I used the system recover disks to reinstall XP for her. She has no idea where she picked this little bugger up, so she's a little scared to get out there and surf again. Hopefully, it will stay far away. We've got her up and running with all the latest XP updates, Norton Anti-Virus, and Ad-Aware (although Adaware and Norton did NOT detect any problems while Home Search Asst was on her machine!). These things are VERY frustrating!

 

[AuroraluvsPhillip]

Hi,

I have been reading this thread with great interest since I just spent this past weekend in "tech support" hell reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP. My computer had Ad-Aware 6, Spybot, CWShredder and McAfee Virus Scan and Personal Firewall Plus and malware STILL got into my system!!! Despite updating and running the antispyware programs daily, it still happened. The damn thing screwed up my operating system so that all potential "fixes" I could think of were frozen, and wouldn't function. System restore, help and support, etc...

One thing I found really helpful was downloading the free trial version of SpySweeper from webroot.com. I know some have already mentioned it, but I think I will purchase a subscription to this one...you can keep it working in the background at all times, unlike the ones like Ad-Aware that you have to "run". If your "home page" on your browser changes, it will alert you and ask you if you want this to occur or not. This would catch potential browser hijacks. It will also alert you when a new site is put into your "favorites", just in case it wasn't you doing it!
Any new applications??? You are told about it and given the option to keep or remove. When you run the program, it also seems to catch some adware that Spybot and Ad-Aware don't seem to pick up. The reason I'm thinking of paying for the subscription is that the free version only allows you to update the program once...and we know there's always new spyware out there...

Sorry for rambling on. Most of the spyware you guys are complaining about, I have either had at one time or I've heard of it...I think you really need a combination of antivirus software, a good firewall, and several antispyware programs to keep your head above water.

Another suggestions is to check your registry for any program that looks funky and delete it. Just be careful you don't delete something essential. If it's in your startup registry, it will continually jump back onto your computer with every restart or reboot, no matter how many times you send it to the recycle bin!

One more thing, download the free Google Toolbar, it does block alot of those annoying pop-ups.

Since when did web surfing become so hazardous??

 

[Angelrose]

I had the same thing happen to me and thankfully my son who is a computer programmer, fixed it for me. My husband's computer was also hijacked and my son had to do a lot of work to get it back to normal. We are all now using Mozilla and are so happy with it. I only use IE as a back up. Mozilla doesn't allow that kind of thing to happen and I will only use it from now on.

Don't know if you all know this, but the government has issued a warning NOT to use IE but to use Mozilla or Opera as your browser because of this problem.

 

[oogieboogie]

Mozilla and Opera are definitely better than IE in terms of frequency of attacks. Hijackers and spyers know that 99.9% of the people out there use IE and it's very easy to manipulate.

I personally use Opera as my primary. It loads up faster, has a built in pop-up blocker and works fine. It's still got some bugs with javascript but if I need javascript or quicktime to play, I just switch over to Mozilla, which is my secondary browser.

So far, I haven't used IE in over 6 months now. I've even switched DH over to Mozilla since his PC got hijacked.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I want to ad that since I purchased the 'Plus' version of Ad-aware, about $25, several months ago, I have not had one spyware to delete. It runs in the background, always updates itself, run proactively. I have run it manually about once a week, just double checking, it is always up to date and never finds any spyware, as it prevents them all. I will run Spybot S& D also, about once a week, with updates, and it always finds all clear. I love Ad-aware Plus.

 

[AuroraluvsPhillip]

Hi Dan,

Ad-Aware Plus sounds like it works similar to SpySweeper, sits in the background and watches for trouble. I swear, if my computer gets messed up like that again, I will definitely switch browsers...I have read many times that Internet Explorer is so easy to hack into and that Mozilla is better to use. Oh well...