Geek Help

[fictional]

Hi! As if this week wasn't fucked enough (insurance people think I don't exist! Medical assistants are rude and classist! there's FAKE GRAVITY pulling me in weird directions! I HAVE TWO PAPERS DUE and apparently I need an MRI...) - I seem to have picked up a weird Trojan! I know, I know, those filthy corners of the internet that you have to frequent in order to get the skinny on Satan...

So, I ask for assistance, Oh Ye Mighty Powers of Flist!

When I open IE, I get infinite amounts of popups; at first they were for porn; they have now devolved into ebay ads, verizon ads etc. Then the browser closes by itself for no reason. I have installed IE 7; this did nothing to help. I'm using Firefox now, which seems free of the popups, still has the occasional popup though with much less frequency, but I am concerned about infection in the innards of the machine.

Thoughts? Advice? I am poor and un-techsavvy, and would much appreciate any pearls of wisdom you lot might have to offer...

ETA: Thanks so much to anyone who offered help & advice, especially visitors from rm's flist. New Problem: The virus/trojans/malware is preventing me from running any of the setups for the spyware/virus scan etc. that I'm trying to downlad. It's just stopping in the middle. Also, it's giving me fake alerts about spyware that purport to be from Windows, but aren't. I'm beginning to think I'm truly screwed.

Comments

[delchi.livejournal.com]

You have a combination of nasties. Form the sounds of it you most lieky have some rogue toolbars, a good dose of malware , and more than a few bad BHOs.

As we say, it's not the end of the world, it's just the wreck of the Barbie Ferrari.

First off, get thee a copy of AVAST ( www.avast.com ) this is free for home use, and it is an excellent anti-virus program as well as a interceptor that catches bad things as tehy coem down the wire destines for various programs ( it protects local email clients, web browsers, p2p programs , chat programs and so on .... ). Register it for home use, and you will get a free registration code. Software updates and signature updates are likewise free. After installing it, it will ask if you want to do a boot time scan - say YES. This allows the program to run once at boot time, intercepting alot of nasty self-replicating programs prior to their starting, or protecting themselves from removal.

Afterwards, go grab a copy of " Spybot Search & Destroy " ( http://www.safer-networking.org ) ... go through the install and immunization process HOWEVER make sure that when the options appear to enable " Helper " programs, you can install TeaTimer ( registry protection ) but DO NOT install the IE helper program ( Bad URL blocker ) There are bugs in it that while not critical , are annoying. After installation follow the wizard guide for immunization and setup, then let it run. It will take a while, but it's worth it.

After that , you should be ok from a large portion of the issues out there. If you ahve any problems email me directly ( RM has my address ) and I'll help out as best I can.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Wow. Extremely helpful. I am d/ling and will attempt to put into practice this evening. Thank you again for the offer of assistance; I appreciate it greatly.

rm's flist is mighty & awesome! I shall send mental fruitbaskets to all.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

How did it go? Defense against the dark ( digital ) arts?

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I did not get my OWL.

We tried all suggestions - for a moment it looked like it worked, but we obviously didn't scotch it hard enough, as it d/led more stuff shortly after restarting.

I will have to leave it in the hands of someone trained to do such things, as I've come to bounds of what I can do on my own.

Thank you so much for your help though; it was much appreciated.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Its terribly hard to do remotely like this. In a better world I'd jsut take the L train and do it in person. Odds are you have some BHO's in place and other evil that is happening. Sadly I am trained to do this sorta thing, but I'm on the worng side of the planet.

If you are still game, grab a copy of "Hijack THis" ( http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php ) and save the report it makes and email it to me, and I can give some pointers.