READ & RUN ME FIRST Fixed it Thanks

Discussion in 'Malware Help - MG (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by petejc, Nov 2, 2009.

  1. petejc

    petejc Private E-2

    Well I followed "READ & RUN ME FIRST" and IT WORKED!!!! Thanks a google.
    I also collected some more information as I went along and I thought I would post it in case it might help someone else.

    I was running Avast with the latest daily update and ZoneAlarm.

    (1) How I got the virus.... I was looking for a datasheet for a chip from Aimtron. I went to the site DO NOT GO THERE>>>> aimtron.com <<<<DO NOT GO THERE UNLESS YOU WANT THE INFECTION!!!. Immediately I was taken to an advertising site. I gather Aimtron is out of business.

    (2) What I experienced.... This is the classic "google opens wrong site" problem. Actually I could get it to happen from any page that has a lot of links including bing and others. If I right clicked, Open In New Window a new page would open with the correct url in the address line then in a split second the address line would change to some advertising site or another site selling something. It didn't do it with every link on the page but with maybe 30% of them. I'm betting this virus makes money for its creator by getting credit for "creating clicks" to these sites.

    Also, if I hit STOP at the redirected url then went back to the original link, right clicked "Copy Shortcut" then pasted the shortcut in the stopped address line I went to the right page. So the virus was injecting itself while the correct site was opening and redirecting. Note, I'm running IE6 with all default settings. I did discover many people running IE8, firefox and opera that said they had similar problems

    (3) Additional Problem, I couldn't install one Windows Security Update, #KB971486. Whenever I installed it, my computer would go into a continuous reboot cycle. I found:
    http://www.stateofthetech.com/?s=BSOD&x=6&y=24

    That told how to uninstall the update. After I got rid of the virus the update installed and ran fine. Could it be that the security flaw that update was trying to fix was the very one that this malware was exploiting?

    I have the logs from all the "READ & RUN....." steps if anyone is interested and wants to do a post mortem on this.

    I hope this helps some others.

    Pete
     
    petejc, Nov 2, 2009
    #1
  2. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    You're welcome. We are happy to hear it helped.

    Possibly. Many people have had problems with this update and many have not. You may wish to read this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23205461-Re-XP-KB971486-Hotfix-Warning-possible-BSOD-loop


    If you are not having any other malware problems then you need to perform final instructions to cleanup from running the READ & RUN ME:
    1. We recommend you keep SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for scanning/removal of malware. Unless you purchase them, they provide no protection. They do not use any significant amount of resources ( except a little disk space ) until you run a scan.
    3. If we had you use ComboFix, uninstall ComboFix (This uninstall will only work as written if you installed ComboFix on your Desktop like we requested.)
      • Click START then RUN and enter the below into the run box and then click OK. Note the quotes are required
      • "%userprofile%\Desktop\combofix" /u
        • Notes: The space between the combofix" and the /u, it must be there.
        • This will uninstall ComboFix and also reset hidden files and folders settings back to Windows defaults.
    4. Any other miscellaneous tools we may have had you install or download can be uninstalled and deleted.
    5. If we had you download any registry patches like fixme.reg or fixWLK.reg (or any others), you can delete these files now.
    6. If running Vista, it is time to make sure you have reenabled UAC by double clicking on the C:\MGtools\enableUAC.reg file and allowing it to be added to the registry.
    7. Go to add/remove programs and uninstall HijackThis.
    8. Goto the C:\MGtools folder and find the MGclean.bat file. Double click on this file to run this cleanup program that will remove files and folders related to MGtools and some other items from our cleaning procedures.
    9. If you are running Vista, Windows XP or Windows ME, do the below:
      • Refer to the cleaning procedures pointed to by step 6 of the READ ME for your Window version and see the instructions to Disable System Restore which will flush your Restore Points.
      • Then reboot and Enable System Restore to create a new clean Restore Point.
    10. After doing the above, you should work thru the below link:
     
    chaslang, Nov 6, 2009
    #2

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