I think I've been hacked

I'm not sure if I've been hacked or hit by malware - when I went to check my e-mail, an email that appeared to be from a trusted friend was there, and I opened it. I immediately was hit by a barrage of screen changes, a firewall warning (that appeared to be a spoofed warning - it only allowed you the choice of granting access to a program - the block access selection was gone). My mouse pointer started moving shortly thereafter, at which time I pulled the plug (literally -I pulled the internet connection out, and turned off the power bar). I'm on my laptop right now. (It was my desktop that got got hit).

Anyway, I turned my desktop back on ( disconnected from my cable internet)
and am running virus scan and ad-aware - definitely some new stuff on the machine - 20 ad-aware critical objects - and I just ran ad-aware last night and removed everything. My firewall is acting screwy ( appears to disable itself after a couple minutes). My virus scanner is a clean, as I reloaded it off a backup CD.

I am extremely nervous about reconnecting to the internet with this machine - any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Welcome

You should try to run through the read me. Make sure your firewall is blocking out going and outgoing if you can. If you can D/L some of the programs with laptop and transfer to desktop. Would like to get you to run online scans if possible - do that in safe mode per instructions.

We ask that you first try to do ALL the TUTORIAL listed below. We then ask you for a HJT log. It must not be inline but rather as a .log or .txt attachment. HJT must be placed in it's own folder and not run from a zipped file. Be sure to close all unnecessary programs, it makes it much easier to read the HJT log.

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 someone will help you. Everyone is 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 1.99.1 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

 

hey slider
all i canthink is to run averything thats in the read me's
including the online scans
and run Hjt. . .and post a log


what anti virus and firewall are you using?

 

I'm working thru the steps now - I am trying to avoid the hijack this log as I know you guys hate it when it is unnecessary. I'll be back with you in a bit (I hope !!)