Need Help on Malware Removal, 1st Message

I need some help in removing some malware on my computer! I followed all the steps in the sticky prior to posting this (I still have tons of popup problems). I've attached the required files mentioned in the sticky.

 

Need Help on Malware Removal, 2nd Message

Here's the other required attachments! Thanks & Cheers!

 

Welcome to MajorGeeks.com!

First, please disable any antivirus and/or antispy programs you have installed so they will not block this fix.

Step 1:
Download HostsXpert and then follow the below steps.

• Unzip HostsXpert.zip
  [*]It will create a folder named HostsXpert in whatever folder you extract it to.
  [*]Run HostsXpert.exe, click Restore Microsoft's Hosts File and then click OK.
  [*]Click the X to exit the program

Step 2:
Now scan with HijackThis and check the boxes for the following entries:
( Make sure ALL browser windows are closed when you click FIX )

Again, make sure ALL browser windows are closed when you click FIX.

Step 3:
Copy the contents of the below Quote Box to Notepad. Then click File and then Save As. Change the Save as Type to All Files. Name the file fixme.reg and then click save. (make sure you save it somewhere you can find it. Saving it to your Desktop may make that easy.) Then double-click on the fixme.reg file on your desktop (or locate it with Windows Explorer and double click on it if not saved to the Desktop) and when it prompts to Add in to the registry, say yes.

Step 4:
Now download The Avenger by Swandog46, and save it to your Desktop.

• Extract avenger.exe from the Zip file and save it to your desktop
• Run avenger.exe by double-clicking on it.
• Check the 'Input script manually' box.
• Click on the magnifying glass icon.
• Copy everything in the Quote box below, and paste it in the box that opens:

• Now click the 'Done' button.
• Click on the traffic light icon and OK the prompt.
• You will be prompted to restart, OK the prompt and your PC should reboot, if not, reboot it yourself.
• A log file from Avenger will be produced at C:\avenger.txt

Step 5: Begin here after rebooting from Step 4!
Next Reset Web Settings & Default Security Settings

Note for IE 6 users:
To Reset Web Settings:
Right click on your desktop Internet Explorer icon and select Properties. Then click the Programs tab and then click "Reset Web Settings". Now go back to the General tab and set your home page address to something useful like www.majorgeeks.com. Click Apply. Click Delete Cookies, Click Delete Files and select Delete all Offline content too, Click OK. When it finishes Click OK.

If you do not have an Internet Explorer icon on your Desktop, click Start, Control Panel (for some systems it may be Start, Settings, Control Panel), Internet Options, Programs tab and then click "Reset Web Settings". Now go back to the General tab and set your home page address to something useful like www.majorgeeks.com. Click Apply. Click Delete Cookies, Click Delete Files and select Delete all Offline content too, Click OK. When it finishes Click OK

To Default Security Settings:
Right click on your desktop Internet Explorer icon and select Properties. Then click the Security Tab and click Default Level for Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted Sites, and Restricted Sites. For IE 7 users, simply click the "Reset all zones to default level" button.

Note for IE 7 users:
Select Internet Options, then the Advanced Tab and then the Reset button under Reset Internet Explorer Settings.


Step 6:
Please download ATF Cleaner by Atribune. This program does not require an installation. The executable actually runs the program.

NOTE: This program is for Windows XP and Windows 2000 only. ATF Cleaner will remove all files from the items that are checked so if you have some cookies you'd like to save. Please move them to a different directory first.

• Double-click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program.
• Under Main choose: Select All
• Click the Empty Selected button.

If you use Firefox browser

• Click Firefox at the top and choose: Select All
• Click the Empty Selected button.
  • NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.

If you use Opera browser

• Click Opera at the top and choose: Select All
• Click the Empty Selected button.
  • NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.

Click Exit on the Main ATF Cleaner menu to close the program.


Step 7:
After you have completed ALL of the above in the correct order, please attach the following logs.

• HijackThis Log
• ShowNew Log
• GetRunKey Log
• Avenger Log

Let me know of any problems you may have encountered with the above instructions and also let me know how things are running now.

 

Thanks for the help! Just for clarification on the logs in step 7 of your message:

Is the HijackThis log from step 2 or a new one from running the program again after step 6?

Are the ShowNew and GetRunKey logs new ones run after step 6 or are the others from my previous post?

And is the Avenger log the one from step 4?

Thanks!

 

A fresh log meaning run it again and get a new log.

Same as above, fresh logs.

Yes!

 

Thanks! It seems to be a bit better, but I'm still getting annoying popups when switching webpages. Here's the first three logs. Cheers!

 

Last of the 4 attachments. Cheers!

 

We need to run Avenger once more...

• Run avenger.exe by double-clicking on it.
• Check the 'Input script manually' box.
• Click on the magnifying glass icon.
• Copy everything in the Quote box below, and paste it in the box that opens:

• Now click the 'Done' button.
• Click on the traffic light icon and OK the prompt.
• You will be prompted to restart, OK the prompt and your PC should reboot, if not, reboot it yourself.
• A log file from Avenger will be produced at C:\avenger.txt

Once you have ran this and rebooted, your logs will be clean.

If you are not having any other malware problems, it is time to do our final steps:

1. If we used Pocket Killbox during your cleanup, do the below
   • Run Pocket Killbox and select File, Cleanup, Delete All Backups
2. If we used ComboFix, you can delete the ComboFix.exe file, C:\ComboFix folder, C:\QooBox folder, C:\WINDOWS\nircmd.exe, and the C:\combofix.txt log that was created.
3. If we used SDFix you can delete all the SDFix related files and folders from your Desktop or whereever you installed it.
4. If we used SmitFraudFix, you can delete all files and folders related to it now including the c:\rapport.txt log.
5. If we used VundoFix, you can delete the VundoFix.exe file and the C:\VundoFix Backups folder and C:\vundofix.txt log that was created.
6. If we had your run FixWareOut, you can delete the Fixwareout.exe file and the C:\fixwareout folder.
7. If we had you run Avenger, you can delete all files related to Avenger, the log (avenger.txt) and C:\avenger.
8. If we had you download any registry patches like fixme.reg, fixme1.reg or fixWLK.reg (or any others), you can delete these files now.
9. You can delete the ShowNew.Zip and GetRunkey.Zip files and the files that you extracted from the ZIP files. You can also delete the C:\newfiles.txt and C:\runkeys.txt logs that were created
10. If you are running Windows XP or Windows ME, do the below:
    • go back to step 8 of the READ & RUN ME to Disable System Restore which will flush your Restore Points.
    • Then reboot and Enable System Restore to create a new clean Restore Point.
11. After doing the above, you should work thru the below link:
    • How to Protect yourself from malware!

 

I ran Avenger again and it looked like it did not find or delete the file (at least from my very novice reading of the log). I've attached three of the latest logs. Thanks again!

 

Last Log. Still getting popups. Cheers!

 

Please download F-Secure's BlacklightBeta

• Download fsbl.exe and save it to the Desktop.
• Once saved... double click fsbl.exe to install the program.
• Click accept agreement and Click scan
• This application may trigger a warning from your antivirus. Let the driver load. Wait for it to finish.
• If it displays any items...don't do anything with them yet. Just hit exit (close)
• It will drop a log on Desktop that starts with fsbl....big number

Please attach the BlackLight log.

 

Log attached. Thanks!

 

Are you still getting popups? If so, do they come up automatically or when you do something in particular?

 

I get popups almost everytime I switch to a different web page from another one. I can be on my yahoo dsl homepage or on this site or others as well. Sometimes I'll get a couple at a time. Cheers!

 

I haven't seen this in a while, however your logs look clean and yet your're still getting popups. I have seen this before, let's try the below and see what comes out of it...

Download AproposFix© by Swandog46

Save it to your desktop or to another folder of its own, but do NOT run it yet!

Now reboot your computer in Safe Mode! (You must be in safe mode or this fix will not work.)

Once in Safe Mode, double-click aproposfix.exe which will give you a chice of where to unzip/install the program to). This is called the Destination folder in the window that popsup. So either install it to the Desktop or the folder where you downloaded the aproposfix.exe file to. It will create a new folder named aproposfix. Open the aproposfix folder and double click on RunThis.bat to run the fix. Follow the prompts.

When the tool is finished, reboot back into normal mode, and post a new HijackThis log, along with the entire contents of the log.txt file that has been created in the aproposfix folder.

 

Here's the latest logs.

Don't know if it helps, but here are the some of the things that popup:

adq.nextag.com
pagead2.googlesyndi....
ad.doubleclick.net
rtm-ext.ebay.com

There are some others as well (I write them down as they popup). Thanks

 

Let's start by updating your OS.

Download the following package, please note its 266 MB and may take about 15 minutes on Cable/DSL.

Windows XP Service Pack 2

After download is complete, double click to install.

Once this has been installed, surf a while and see how things are running.

Also, it's up to you whether you update, but I want to ask before I recommend it. Is there a reason you haven't updated to IE 7?

 

After installing SP2, nothing has changed as far as the popups go. I've got IE 7 on one of our other machines and never cared for it. Anything to try now? Cheers!

 

Run the utility below...

1. Download this file - combofix.exe
2. Double click combofix.exe & follow the prompts.
3. When finished, it will produce a log for you. Attach this log to your next reply

Note:

Do not mouseclick combofix's window while it is running. That may cause it to stall.

Attach the log after completing it.

Do you have the IE settings set to block popups?

 

Thanks. The popup blocker is set in IE (filter at medium). Here's the Combofix log. Cheers!

 

Are they still coming up?

Do they popup automatically or when you click a link?

 

Still getting them. They popup when I click on a link. Cheers!

 

On every site or just certain ones?

 

On most sites, it does. This site is one, NetZero page is another, TheDieselStop main page does not, but the forum pages always do. My ATT DSL page does as well. Cheers!

 

Download HostsXpert and then follow the below steps.

• Unzip HostsXpert.zip
  [*]It will create a folder named HostsXpert in whatever folder you extract it to.
  [*]Run HostsXpert.exe, click Restore Microsoft's Hosts File and then click OK.
  [*]Click the X to exit the program

Please download DelDomains and unzip it to your desktop. Do not run it yet.

• Find the files from deldomains.zip on your Desktop and RightClick on the deldomains.inf file and select Install.

Try these steps, reboot afterwards and let me know how things are running.

 

The popups are not quite as prevalent, but still there for the most part. They maybe come up only half the time on some sites. Thanks & Cheers!

 

I personally don't think its malware. Everything I have had you run has come back clean thus far.

You said that you got a popup from MG's? Is that still occurring? What exactly was the content of the popup you got from here?

 

I may be good now. I usually run the Content Advisor (and was running it before all the problems started). After I turned it off, I stopped getting the messages and no popups (although I can see the "offending" addresses flashing by in the status bar). Is the Content Advisor flagging stuff (like ads) on a web page? It never did that before the major problems started. Should I start "cleaning up"? Thanks for all the help! Cheers!

 

I've never used Content Advisor so I can't say for sure. As far as the messages, I see those too.