Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By

[calliopes_pen]

Something tried to hijack my computer yesterday. I was running a Full Scan with PC Tools Internet Security, and it noticed something. I was suspicious about it. And when whatever this thing was realized it was noticed, it went into action. Shut down PC Tools Internet Security. Shut down System Restore. Shut down every program that could possibly help me. Threw up a fake antivirus notice that wanted me to download it to get access to everything else, and force me to pay to fix what wasn’t broken. I'm not an idiot, so I knew better than to click on anything

It wouldn’t stop with the whole thing (for those that wonder, the fake is called Disk Antivirus Professional) so I turned it off until Dad made it home. We teamed up, considered wiping the whole thing clean and starting over. Got back in through Safe Mode, without getting that accursed pop-up, and I tested System Restore. It worked there, so I had an idea. I was able to get in. Went back in time to before this mess started. Started up PC Tools safely, got rid of the thing last night. If it ever returns, it knows to throw it in Quarantine and it's on the blocked list.

So now, off to read my friends list and see what I missed. (And I have saved anything I desperately need, that hadn’t already been saved, to the external hard drive. Just in case.)

(So Fannish Items will be yesterday and today combined this afternoon, and I’m off to catch up on everything I missed from 1 PM to this morning.)

Comments

[kerravonsen]

Hooray to you for outsmarting the tricksy wight!

[alejandradd.livejournal.com]

I use HiJackThis (http://sourceforge.net/projects/hjt/) at the first sign of problem, and I'm usually able to spot the malicious thing right away and kill it with fire.

I haven't had that much malware in my computers since I started using AdBlock Plus on my browsers a few years ago, though.

[calliopes_pen]

Thank you, I've just downloaded that one. I'll do a sweep through with that in a little while, once I've caught up on my friends list. (It went back to skip=720 on Dreamwidth, in the few hours everything was down.)

PC Tools has taken care of everything that's tried to get into my computer--at least until mid-January. It imploded around then, I reinstalled.

[alejandradd.livejournal.com]

You do have to know what you're doing with HiJackThis, though. But I find it more comforting to know where the thing is killing it myself than have some malware removal tool claim they have removed it.

[calliopes_pen]

I've been looking through HiJackThis--so far, from what I can tell, there's nothing malicious hidden away in my computer. (PC Angel turned up in the list of processes--but a search tells me it isn't bad)

[rileyc.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that sounds like the one that got me earlier this year. Incredibly obnoxious thing. I've heard that thing you see advertised late at night, MyCleanPC, does that too.

[calliopes_pen]

I see those commercials during the day, too--one aired on The Science Channel earlier. Based on everything I've read through various searches, you would be right about MyCleanPC (and Uniblue in general, since they're apparently the same).