A Nasty Bit of Spyware Forums

G2EWS

Hi All,

Thought I would share a problem I have just been sorting out with you.

Last night I downloaded a small file off the internet and rather foolishly I opened it, cursing myself as I did so.

Today whilst working I found that every time I went to use Internet Explorer I had an error message:

Critical Error!
---------------------------
Attention, Chris! Some dangerous viruses detected in your system. Windows XP (TM) files corrupted.
This may lead to the destruction of important files in C:\Windows. Download protection software now!

Whatever you clicked on it took you to a web site were you where expected to download some spyware programme! Needless to say I did no such thing.

After some research I downloaded:

http://www.download.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html?hhTest=1

Ran the programme and it gives a list of running processes. In amongst these was this little devil:

O2 - BHO: WormRadar.com - {CEAF8FFD-A61C-46EF-A970-D77D90246918} - C:\WINDOWS\system32\paat.dll

I highlighted it, clicked to remove it and hey presto all is now OK!

I am also currently running in depth scans with Panda software and Uniblue SpyEraser. I run these about once a week anyway.

Hope his helps someone else out there.

Best regards

Chris

littlenell

Chris- what a pain! I have kapersky on my laptop and it scares me to death every time it screeches alerting me to a possible worm/virus. I think it is great, and moreso since DH managed to get a worm virus using a USB storage device to download music to our shared drive....thing took over 3 hours to remove all the hidden bits and in the end we had to delete all the contents of the shared drive and reformat Rolling Eyes

G2EWS

zappy61

Don't take sweets from strangers!

Bagshanty

I manage to download one yesterday, posing as a driver for media player. It came down automatically when I clicked on a link to a video somewhere. It acted suspicious, and I killed media player. AVG detected and quarantined the exe file during a subsequent daily scan.

lindyloot

Hi Chris for a novice on computers what would you advise us to use to stop these things getting through. I run Norton at the mo butwould not know what else to use.
Lin

G2EWS

Hi Lin,

Different programmes are better at different times! Sounds daft but it is true.

For some time AVG was reckoned to be the best, then Panda seemed to be better then Uniblue. There have been others and there will be more.

In terms of solving your problem, I for one do not like Norton. Every computer I have installed it on has been slowed down and in some cases making the computer almost unusable.

For simplicity and ease of use then AVG which has a free version is probably what I would recommend.

But keep your eye on the computer press and see what is happening. Make sure if you download anything it is from a reliable source and DO NOT ever open an email unless it is from someone you know or expected.

Just to confuse matters a little more you need to run anti virus and and spyware.

The virus is I guess obvious, but if you are not into the pc then understanding spyware is important. These are the little devils also known as trojans that will get into your computer and at worst record everything you do. So when you pay for something on a credit card they will have recorded ever key stroke! I have used spyware to record everything typed on a computer at work, so I could explain that I knew the person was playing games and messing around during work time. The very small file I put on the pc sent me an email every 15 minutes with everything typed and included a screen print!

Scary stuff.

Regards

Chris

Bagshanty

Lin, the most useful tools are 1) a bucketfull of common sense and 2) a healthy scepticism.

Don't open emails claiming you have won a prize, or about a parcel you sent, or... the list is infinite. You recognise emails from friends, treat every other email with suspicion, especially if has an attachment. If the email from your friend sounds strange and has an attachment, there's a good chance it's a virus.

Some security advice aimed at beginners here:

apxc15