IM Virus

Bam65 · Jul 23, 2010

It spams everyone on your IM list with a message asking if a picture is them with a link. If you click on the link it wants to install somewhere. I had this happen once before(it was a lot less intrusive virus that time) but stupid me still went ahead and clicked the link and installed it to my desktop where I opened it. I should have known better after the last one, especially since the icon on the desktop didn't look like any gif or jpeg icon but it came from somebody I trusted. I've even told people not to open picture link messages in IM but I didn't heed my own advice.

So anyway, I clicked on a picture link in Yahoo Instant Messenger and got this virus. It's like an overlay on top of my browser window. It makes the browser area underneath a little darker and I can't access anything in that area. It goes about halfway down the screen roughly. There's a white window in the middle that asks for human confirmation to make sure you're not a bot and there's a few links in this white window. If you click on one of the links it seems to lock up whatever website you're on at the time. The white inner window turns black and it says that human confirmation failed(or something like that) and to try again later. Then it seems the black failure window comes up every time you try to navigate back to that site for a little awhile. When I went to a few other sites my browser seemed to work okay again for a brief period(which may have just been a coincidence). It came back eventually though on another site with the original white window.

There's also a window that comes up with a Windows Explorer header if you try to navigate away from the page you're on mentioning something about a survey concerning spam(something like that) and asking if you want to navigate away from that page.

Has anyone seen a virus like this before and how do I deal with it? I'm using IE and Windows Vista.

Kestrel13! · Jul 23, 2010

Welcome to Major Geeks!

Please read ALL of this message including the notes before doing anything.

Pleases follow the instructions in the below link:

READ & RUN ME FIRST. Malware Removal Guide

and attach the requested logs when you finish these instructions.

**** If something does not run, write down the info to explain to us later but keep on going. ****

Do not assume that because one step does not work that they all will not. MGtools will frequently run even when all other tools will not.

After completing the READ & RUN ME and attaching your logs, make sure that you tell us what problems still remain ( if any still do )!

Helpful Notes:

If you run into problems trying to run the READ & RUN ME or any of the scans in normal boot mode, you can run the steps in safe boot mode but make sure you tell us what you did later when you post logs. See the below if you do not know how to boot in safe mode:

Starting your computer in Safe mode

If you have problems downloading on the problem PC, download the tools and the manual updates for SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes ( links are given in the READ & RUN ME) onto another PC and then burn to a CD. Then copy them to the problem PC. You will have to skip getting updates if (and only if) your internet connection does not work. Yes you could use a flash drive too but flash drives are writeable and infections can spread to them.

If you cannot seem to login to an infected user account, try using a different user account (if you have one) in either normal or safe boot mode and running only SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes while logged into this other user account. Then reboot and see if you can log into the problem user account. If you can then run SUPERAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, ComboFix and MGtools on the infected account as requested in the instructions.

To avoid additional delay in getting a response, it is strongly advised that after completing the READ & RUN ME you also read this sticky:

Don't Bump! It Only Hurts You!!!

Any additional post is a bump which will add more delay. Once you attach the logs, your thread will be in the work queue and as stated our system works the oldest threads FIRST.

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IM Virus

Bam65 Private E-2

Kestrel13! Super Malware Fighter - Major Dilemma Staff Member