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My friend's PC is now lagging very badly on startup. His PC seems to have alot of processor activities that he cant even start any application. When his processor finally stops processing, the system restart by itself.
I am quite sure this is a virus problem as i think i heard of such symptons b4, but i cant recall what virus is it.
Does anyone have any idea?
Start in safe mode
Run a virus checker / spybot search&destroy / hijackthis
Most likely it's just spyware...which means it's not doing anything harmful, but it will eat up resources like that. Spyware seems to be much more rampant these days that viruses. Let us know what happens, there's steps you should take to help prevent it from happening again.
He claimed he opened an unknown e-mail. There were two attachments but he didnt opened it. It crashed his pc and then that's how everything happened. I told him to restart in safe mode and scan his pc now
Tell him to get a better email client than m$-lookout
Spyware steals information such as your bank details. I personally call that extremely harmful.Quote:
Most likely it's just spyware...which means it's not doing anything harmful, but it will eat up resources like that
Browser hijackers, which are often misclassified as 'spyware', redirect your homepage and search assistant to unwanted sites, including family-hostile sites.
Again, I call that extremely harmful.
Update your virus definitions and run a full virus scan.
Get hold of Spybot Search and Destroy 1.3 from here. Install it, and update it immediately.
Have it scan your system and get it to fix everything it identifies in red as a problem. If it requires to continue across a reboot, do so.
Then get hold of HijackThis and unzip it into its own folder. Please do not run it directly from the zipped location, Temporary Internet Files location, or the Desktop.
Run it, and click on Scan. After a few seconds, the data area will fill with information and Scan will change to Save Log. Click on that and save the logfile anywhere convenient. A Notepad session will open up containing the scan results.
Post the entire contents of that logfile into this thread, and we'll take it from there.
sorry to ask something as a side thread.
is spy sweeper comparable to the spybot search and destroy?
i have spy sweeper and nortons, and always keep them up to date.
i'm also assuming nortons internet security 2005 is sufficient also?
this may be excessive, but i check for updates and scan twice a day.
once in the morning and once at night.
This is the first i have ever heard of hijackthis.
is there a document that summarizes the entries (good/bad) that hijackthis will list?
i'm assuming i can google them, but is there a centralized data base of possible bad ones?
If everyone used Opera, Mozilla, Netscape (sorry if a disregarded any browsers you may like. ;) ), the internet would be a much safer place. Spy/Adware wouldn't spread as it does now.
Go Opera!
Mozillas good too though. (And it's free!)
Whatever browser you use, make sure you pay regular visits to Windows Update and keep everything up to date.
In particular, ensure you are always current with the latest security and critical updates, including (especially) those for Internet Explorer, even if you don't use IE at all.
You must use IE for that process.
If you're referring to the Webroot one, then it's a good solution.Quote:
is spy sweeper comparable to the spybot search and destroy?
See here for full details:Quote:
One basic tool in every user's toolbox of software ought to be an anti-spyware scanner. There are several excellent anti-spyware scanners available -- some free, some for pay. These include (but are not limited to):
Ad-aware
GIANT AntiSpyware
Pest Patrol
Spybot Search & Destroy
Webroot Spy Sweeper
Spyware Warrior: List of Rogue (and Good) anti-spyware solutions
HijackThis is a tool we use a lot in the antispyware community as an aid to get rid of the more persistent malware that slips through mainstream anti-spyware programs.Quote:
is there a document that summarizes the entries (good/bad) that hijackthis will list?
i'm assuming i can google them, but is there a centralized data base of possible bad ones?
If you're not happy with editing the Registry and changing settings at the OS level of your system, then it's an extremely bad idea to 'go it alone' and fix things with HijackThis. Certainly, whatever you do, DO NOT try to fix your system on a "what happens if I try this?" basis as you could end up with an unusable system.
The author of HijackThis, Merijn, has written this tutorial to help people understand the logs it produces.
For those who are interested in this stuff, check out the Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals where you'll find links to good forums and sites with respect to spyware.
If you have any wierd extra tasks running, go to Answers That Work and look at their task list. If you find something not on the list, or if you do find it and it says you have spyware or a virus, then well, at least you know you have something wrong.
I use IE, but to keep it safe I have it so that it doesn't run any Active X controls no matter what. No auto-downloads or anything, and cookies are always either blocked or on high protection. And java is turned off.
I also use webmail wich is much safe than anything you can download. It's safe because when viewing your e-mail, any viruses or attatchments you don't choose to download yourself are downloaded to the server computer, wherever that is.
If you find any tasks that you don't want anymore, but start at at startup, go into safe mode, and click "run" in the start menu. Then type "msconfig" press enter, and go to the startup tab.
>>Spyware steals information such as your bank details.
no, they don't.
Waldo2k2,
What is spyware?Quote:
Spyware is software or hardware installed on a computer without the user's knowledge which gathers information about that user for later retrieval by whomever controls the spyware.
Spyware can be broken down into two different categories, surveillance spyware and advertising spyware.
Surveillance software includes key loggers, screen capture devices, and trojans. These would be used by corporations, private detectives, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, suspicious spouses, etc.
What do keyloggers do? You go to enter your credit card details to make a payment for something, and a keylogger is there, recording every keystroke and sending that information back to a server somewhere.
Vox, Answers That Work is an excellent site also. I'm always referring back to their startup list.
Keyloggers were considered viruses long before spyware was even a term. Trojans are not spyware, that site mixes terminology quite a bit. Trojans are software that disguise themselves as something else to the operating system (like a packet that was requested, etc.), or to the user (such as readme.txt.exe formats your hard drive), and then execute their own code. Trojans are neither viruses nor spyware, they are programs that deliver either viruses or spyware.
>>Surveillance software includes key loggers, screen capture devices, and trojans. These would be used by corporations, private detectives, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, suspicious spouses, etc.
more misinformation. Yes those could be used by those parties, but in that situation, that's not spyware. You wouldn't use the term spyware when you install VNC in a corporation would you? You wouldn't put a trojan on the suspects computer to capture evidence, you knock down their door and take the freaking hard drive.
Most people I know, and most people around here, tend to be referring to adware when speaking of spyware (despite what the particular site you pointed out may say). And when speaking of viruses they usually include malware into that lot (which would be keyloggers and the like). Most people also consider browser hijackers to not be malware...some boobies popped up in front of your four year old when they type a search into the address bar, that's easily dealt with. Someone running your bank account down to nothing is not so easily fixed.
That's why I said what I did. I'm not trying to flame you or anything, I was going to originally clarify myself more but ran out of time. There are many different interpretations of the meaning of spyware, I'm just letting you know what most people around here (considering you're new here) refer to it as.
>>You wouldn't put a trojan on the suspects computer to capture evidence, you knock down their door and take the freaking hard drive.
so what is Carnivore and DIRT for?
Waldo2k2,
I know there are no flames here, and that's good .... it's good to have a discussion about something and bounce it around without attacking each other! Flames, IMHO, are pointless ad hominem remarks made by those who cannot think of anything useful and constructive to say at the time .... clearly something that's NOT going on here.
Some browser hijackers, especially CoolWebSearch (CWS) are especially difficult to remove. Tricks it uses to get onto peoples systems include the following:Quote:
Most people also consider browser hijackers to not be malware...some boobies popped up in front of your four year old when they type a search into the address bar, that's easily dealt with.
- Hijacking the accessibility user stylesheet (the oldest one)
- Multiple running processes that 'watch each others backs' - kill one off, and the other one restarts it
- An addedd service. Take a look here to see what this one does and how it's removed.
- A super-hidden DLL file. It is possible to load a file onto an XP system with strange permissions that cause it to go invisible, even when Show All Files is enabled and you use the Windows Find facility. Specialist tools have been written to find it and fix it, and zapping the Registry key cannot be done using the standard Windows Registry Editor.
I think that there are many special cases and exceptions to all this (like coolwebsearch). Another is VX2, I've heard that that one is darn near impossible (though I believe lavasoft has a removal tool for it, don't know if spybot supports its removal natively or not) to remove. As of the last year or so I've noticed the lines between spyware and virii blurring. I've had spyware/malware on pc's that download other spyware and viruses from some guys ftp site. It's getting rediculous, it really is. There needs to be some strict laws put into place, I think spyware needs to be lumped into the same legal category as hacking/etc. (Microsoft needs to shape up as well but that's beyond the scope of this argument :) )
>>so what is Carnivore and DIRT for?
basically an invasion of privacy ;). Those aren't really investigative tools per se, they're used more to find possible suspects rather than investigate them. I think with the advent of home security, law enforcement/gov't. would move much more quickly on a possible threat rather than wait and collect more evidence transparently, running the risk of being made by the suspect.
Anyway, hopefully Raison got is problem figured out.
::edit::
almost forgot, when I said the boobies popping up in front of the 4 year old was easily dealt with, I mean it's easy to explain that kind of thing to your child...you can't explain away your entire savings gone missing :) I wasn't talking about the difficulty of removing such items, just how their effects would be dealt with.
That's why I like the term 'malware' as (IMHO) that's a better catch-all term. Terms such as 'spyware', 'virus', 'trojan', 'adware', and so on are (strictly speaking) terms for specific kinds of infection.Quote:
As of the last year or so I've noticed the lines between spyware and virii blurring.
Most of what is called 'spyware' is actually adware.
I know there were things that you disagreed with at SpywareInfo, but that's a point he made in one of his newsletters, that not all of this crud is spyware.
We even had a whole thread at one time on one of the antispyware (antimalware?) sites discussing what terms should be used, some of which were rather frivolous.