Helping a Friend Over Facebook, Hijacking Problem

mikmalot · Mar 2, 2011

I'm helping a friend, it looks like something is infecting her computer and preventing her from doing anything with her computer really. It looks to me like it's a combination adware/hijacker of some sort. I guess the easiest way is to share with y'all what she's told me so far:

Her: I just have the windows defender and adaware.. Whatever it is isnt letting me open anything on my computer and keep trying to get me to download some random antivirus software

Her: All these things keep popping up to get me to activate/download antivirus software but I don't know what they are

Me: I take it that it's not allowing you to open windows defender and ad-aware? But you can open your internet browser?

Her: Yeah.. I was able to open defender right when I restarted my computer and it scanned and said my computer was running normally but after that window all I can do is go to their website to download software

Me: Try this: Download and install Spybot: Search and Destroy and AVG Anti-Virus. After those are installed, run your computer in safe mode (hopefully this will stop whatever it is that's preventing you from opening things up), and update and run spybot, AVG, Windows Defender and Ad-Aware. Hopefully they'll find something.

Her: It won't let me go to other internet sites either though
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My first thought was my standard mode of attack (safemode, antivirus plus spybot) and then work our way through the hijacking sticky, but if she can't acces other websites, I don't even know where to begin.

Any suggestions?

PS: She's accessing facebook through her blackberry, it looks like

TimW · Mar 2, 2011

I would suggest you get her to sign up at MG's so we can work directly with her. It will be difficult to be effective trying to go through you. Relaying messages will be too time consuming.

As an example, this is how she needs to begin:

Please download and run the below tool named Rkill (courtesy of BleepingComputer.com) which may help allow other programs to run.

There are 4 different versions. If one of them won't run then download and try to run the other one.

Vista and Win7 users need to right click and choose Run as Administrator

You only need to get one of them to run, not all of them. You may get warnings from your antivirus about this tool, ignore them or shutdown your antivirus.

Rkill.exe

Rkill.com

Rkill.scr

Rkill.pif

* Double-click on the Rkill desktop icon to run the tool.
* If using Vista or Windows 7 right-click on it and choose Run As Administrator.
* A black DOS box will briefly flash and then disappear. This is normal and indicates the tool ran successfully.
* If not, delete the file, then download and use the one provided in Link 2.
* If it does not work, repeat the process and attempt to use one of the remaining links until the tool runs.
* Do not reboot until instructed.

If you are having problems running Rkill, you can download iExplore.exe or eXplorer.exe, which are renamed copies of Rkill.com, and try them instead.

* If the tool does not run from any of the links provided, please let me know.
Once you've gotten one of them to run then try to immediately run the following.

Now download and Run exeHelper from Raktor

Please download exeHelper to your desktop.

Double-click on exeHelper.com to run the fix.

A black window should pop up, press any key to close once the fix is completed.

A log file named log.txt will be created in the directory where you ran exeHelper.com

Attach the log.txt file to your next message.

Note: If the window shows a message that says "Error deleting file", please re-run the program before posting a log - and post the two logs together (they will both be in the one file).

If you already have them installed, be sure to update Malwarebytes and SUPERAntiSpyware before the scan!

Now run this: Using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Now run this: SUPERAntiSpyware - running & getting a log

Now run this: Using MGtools

Now you need to attach (See: HOW TO: Attach Items To Your Post ) the below logs created while running the above scans

exeHelper log

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware log

MGlogs.zip - normally it is C:\MGlogs.zip - only attach this log from MGtools.exe DO NOT attach any logs seen in the MGtools folder.

mikmalot · Mar 2, 2011

I agree, it'd be easier to direct her here, but the problem is she doesn't seem to be able to access any other websites.

So, as it stands, as best as I understand it, I can't get her to download any of these programs because she can't access them. So...I'm at a loss.

TimW · Mar 2, 2011

She will need to use a different computer to download and then copy the programs over to her computer via CD or thumb drive.

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Helping a Friend Over Facebook, Hijacking Problem

mikmalot Private E-2

TimW MajorGeeks Administrator - Jedi Malware Expert Staff Member

mikmalot Private E-2

TimW MajorGeeks Administrator - Jedi Malware Expert Staff Member