Tech. Support

[Mack_Attack]

So last night I decided to Get my norton updated. The old one finished up at the end of August. So I download Norton 2006. Everything went not to bad. Except that every time I log onto my user name. It says it could not support the repair part of it and that it needs to be reinstalled. I have not yet did this.

But onto my problem. Every time that I log onto my user name my desk top has. This message about spyware and how computers are effected and is asking me to click on this part that will check it or compare different programs. I have not did. But I have no way to remove it. I also had some trojen that was found on my computer but norton picked it up and I was able to delete it. But I am woundering if there is still more on there. I have done a few scans and all looks good.

Also when I go onto the net. My home page is a page that is about secruity and it says I am infected with a spyware and it gives my IP address and the Ip address of the computer looking at mine.

So where can I get some good spyware/adware program to scan this and remove it. Is there such thing as a free program that will scan and remove?? If not can I get some direction to some programs that I have to pay for but are good.

Thanks for any help.

[Bungleau]

Man... protect me from spyware that's trying to protect me from spyware!

Okay, a couple of things you need to pick up...

1. AdAware -- www.lavasoft.de -- free version of spyware and malware remover

2. Spybot -- www.safernetworking.org -- free spyware and malware remover.

3. ZoneAlarm -- www.zonealarm.com -- free version of firewall

4. HiJack This -- www.merijn.org -- free spyware removal tool, but trickier to use. More powerful, too.

Download the first three, run them, and make sure they run all the time. Depending on how badly infected you are, you may need to go into safe mode to run them... and you may need to turn off the Windows System Restore abilities while you do it.

You can also go to www.trendmicro.com and run their housecall utility on-line. It's free, and it will scan for viruses and malware. It will also clean those things up. I'd do that as one final thing before you decide you're clean... or maybe run it once at the start, and again when you're done.

You have my sympathies.

[ 10-12-2005, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]

[shamrock_uk]

Well firstly, could you share the address about this security page of yours?

It's not normally possible to do any kind of a scan for spyware etc over the net without you jumping through a couple of hoops.

If you just visit the page and it tells you without you performing any actions, it might just be an advert that tells you you're infected just so you click on it...

As for free programmes, if you follow the link in my sig you'll find details of various free programmes that will help get rid of any spyware/adware as well as protect your computer in other ways. It's a little out of date but the advice is still sound - just click on the relevent tab along the top.

[Mack_Attack]

Thanks for the help guys. I know this has been all talked about before. But I never had any problems back then. And the security page was part of the download I did from Norton.

When I get home fom work I am going to try some of the programs that you refered to me. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Seraph]

2. Spybot -- www.safernetworking.org -- free spyware and malware remover.

The URL for spybot is actually www.safer-networking.org

[Mack_Attack]

Thanks for the URL change.

[Bungleau]

Whoops! Thanks for the correction, Seraph. I've updated my post.

I do those from memory... and occasionally, my memory is faulty [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Timber Loftis]

My wife has spyware/malware issues on her machine. If she runs Opera or Firefox, will it help? If there is embedded spyware/malware in the registry and you are online on Opera, will the spyware grab IE, open it and redirect it?

[andrewas]

Running those browsers will make you less prone to further infection in future, and will avoid any spywares which have installed themselves into IE. However, you have to use IE occasioanly, either due to dimwitted webmasters who dont know how to author sites properly, or a site which uses an IE-only feature like activeX.

Also, not all spywares infest the browser, a keylogger for instance, will infect the system itself and dosen't depend on the browser after isntallation. So you want to remove any and all spywares.

Use spybotSD, use adaware, use the M$antispyware beta, and your favorite virus scanner - IIRC, the kaspersky free online scan is the current best available - and if you still have problems after running those in safe mode with windows restore off, then we pull out the big gun, a program known as 'Hijack This'. But that ones a weapon of last resort.

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Bungleau: 1. AdAware -- www.lavasoft.de -- free version of spyware and malware remover 3. ZoneAlarm -- www.zonealarm.com -- free version of firewall

I would aim to forget that those two even exist. [img]smile.gif[/img] Ad-aware isn't near as good as it used to be: it has been completely eclipsed by Spybot. ZoneAlarm Free is full of scary but meaningless warnings, and overreacts at some minor things (eg, Firefox uses loopback networking for some self-tests - ZA says it's doing something evil (it isn't - no packets leave your computer)), and is a placebo for many other things.
And HijackThis is probably overkill for what seems like a very simple problem here: Norton AntiVirus Sucks. It is bloated, intrusive, expensive, slows your computer down, and downloads huge updates, and doesn't help much against viruses.

The solution to the problem is simple:
Firefox + Thunderbird (if needed) + Spybot (scan once / week or so at most) + AVGFree or Avast Free (one full system scan when first installed, after which the on-access scans will be plenty), and maybe a decent firewall or IDS - although with this set up, even the Windows XP firewall should be good enough. Oh, and something like Gaim would be ideal if you use any chat at all, but specifically MSN, AIM, and ICQ offiically clients are bad. MS Office and Windows Media player are also said to have some problems (other than macro viruses and DRM), but I've never seen any reliable data on it - get OpenOffice and VLC if you're worried.
After that it's mostly a matter of avoiding apps that install Bad Stuff with them - which is often just common sense.