A general question

Hello. This is my first post so I hope I've put it in the right place.

I found you as a result of a search I did yesterday relating to a virus problem with my computer at work. I have read and digested the post about removing trojans and spyware, so I am not about to post anything till I've gone through that procedure - nice job for the end of the week!

But, the reason for this post is as a result of another thread I just found. In this thread it states that to avoid these things getting on to computers, you should avoid surfing dodgy websites. Well, my problem happened from a completely innocent site. As soon as I clicked on the link in the Google search, several windows flashed up and then disappeared, but I could just make out some dodgy titles. My virus scanner had just updated not long before this so I ran a scan which found nothing, cleared out the Internet files, etc, and everything appeared to be OK, as it does now. Nothing untoward appears to be happening, except that on startup I get a message that a virus has been detected - JS/SillyDownloader.AA and .M, in case you were wondering.

Now I expect you're all dying to know what I was searching for - well, having just moved into a brand new house, it was garden design software!! I normally study the Google search results carefully before clicking on anything, and this link just appeared to want to lead me to a site that sold garden design programmes. (Yes, another Brit! - I've read that thread as well)

What can you do in that situation?

I have a firewall (Sygate) as well as the AV scanner (Command), but I guess I need to go belt and braces now and get some other stuff to defend me against this happening again.

I'll post later with the results, if I manage to get anywhere today.

 

Welcome

This site has alot of good tools for cleaning up your computer. It's very important that the first thing you do is the following:

First, please follow ALL the steps in this Sticky thread READ ME FIRST BEFORE ASKING FOR SUPPORT: Basic Spyware, Trojan And Virus Removal.
If you already have any of the programs linked in the tutorial please double check your version to make sure you have the latest one and that you have any/all updates for the programs.

NOTE: In order to resolve the issues you are having it is very important that you at least try to perform all the steps as outlined. If you have any difficulty please post back letting us know what steps you have completed, what you found while doing the scans if anything and details about any problems you have encountered in completing the steps. The more details you can provide the better.

Try this... you may find it's all you need. If not post your results and I am sure one of the PROS can help you. These guys are quite busy, as you can see by the number of posts, so hang in there. Good Luck!!

After doing ALL of the above if you still have a problem:

Make sure you have HijackThis 1.99 and follow the guidelines on where to install it and how to post a log as an attachment. This is all covered in the sticky thread NO HIJACK THIS LOG FILES BEFORE READING THIS: HJT Tutorial & LOG File Posting

Now post a HijackThis log as an attachment to your message (Do not post the log inline). All running programs should be closed, INCLUDING YOUR WEB BROWSER, e-mail. Close before running Hijack This!

To repeat: Do NOT run Hijack This from the Desktop, a temp folder, or a sub-folder of C:\Documents and Settings, or choose to run it directly from the downloaded ZIP file. Place it in its own folder for example C:\Program Files\HJT

 

I have started another thread on my problem, having now gone through all the steps outlined in your post.

So, to get back to my question below, what do I need to have on my system as a bare minimum, in addition to the AV and firewall I already have, to prevent such a thing happening again when visiting what should be perfectly innocent websites?

I consider myself to be fairly careful when surfing, but I can't see how I could have avoided this problem, as the site just looked as if it would tell me about garden design software.

 

If you still have a problem do not start another thread. If you have gone through the whole tutorial and are still having problems then do the following.

Make sure you have HijackThis 1.99 and follow the guidelines on where to install it and how to post a log as an attachment. This is all covered in the sticky thread NO HIJACK THIS LOG FILES BEFORE READING THIS: HJT Tutorial & LOG File Posting

Now post a HijackThis log as an attachment to your message (Do not post the log inline). All running programs should be closed, INCLUDING YOUR WEB BROWSER, e-mail. Close before running Hijack This!

To repeat: Do NOT run Hijack This from the Desktop, a temp folder, or a sub-folder of C:\Documents and Settings, or choose to run it directly from the downloaded ZIP file. Place it in its own folder for example C:\Program Files\HJT

Once you get everything fixed look ar Chaslang article:
How to Protect yourself from malware!

 

I see your moving along in the other thread so disregard my HJT part. Look at the How to Protect from Malware !