calliopes_pen: (yaseanne delurking 4th Doctor)
calliopes_pen ([personal profile] calliopes_pen) wrote2008-05-28 02:47 pm

Computer Update

Yesterday, as [personal profile] wabbitseason suggested, Dad and I did a registry sweep to see if we could find anything. Nothing turned up. We did another virus sweep, and didn’t find anything that way.

He also checked to see if there were any updates to BlackIce, since it had been a while since it was updated--but something kept claiming it was all up-to-date, when it probably wasn’t. So after I went to bed, he went in and got rid of it, and that other firewall, and installed McAfee and another firewall. Using that search, he found the Trojan I suspected was there, and also discovered some Adware that was hidden away in the files for a screensaver he likes to use. He got rid of that.

He found a few more Spy Cookies, and got rid of those, too. The pop-ups continued, and there was one brief issue with windows opening. 70 windows for one thing, in about 10 seconds. That turned out to be an issue with Windows Security Alerts, where it tried to update and failed, and couldn’t quite get a page open to say so--so it overcompensated, I guess.

Dad ran a defrag about an hour ago, and for now things seem okay. Keep your fingers crossed, everyone.

Random comment about the icon I'm using now: That's probably how I looked when the porn pop-ups came. Heh.

ETA: And the time without pop-ups lasted until 4 PM, at which point they started again--so it's back to the drawing board.

[identity profile] rwarner.livejournal.com 2008-05-29 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
A suggestion that may or may not find itself useful - turn off System Restore before you do the full deep clean again, then reboot and run the scan once more. If it finds something else, reboot and scan again - may also want to run the scan in safe mode totally disconnected from the internet. Once you think you've gotten rid of it all, re-enable System Restore and then reconnect to the internet. If that doesn't work, you may be looking at a format and reload to get rid of all of it, unfortunately.