Invisible Malware

chrisjdel · Jan 16, 2005

There's something lurking in the depths of my system that I can't find. I've used Ad-Aware SE, Webroot SpySweeper, Spy Doctor, Pest Patrol 5, Spybot - Search and Destroy, A^2 anti-trojan, and several other programs as well. Everytime I reboot, and every so often while the system is on, a file described as 'VX2/Link Replacer' gets put back on my system. I can get rid of it, but it always comes back and I can't locate whatever's responsible for regenerating it. The only real suspect is 'My Way.My Bar' which I can detect with several different anti-spyware tools and each one claims to have deleted it but if I re-scan with the same tool afterward the damn thing's still there. Please don't tell me to go into Add/Remove Programs to uninstall it (that's the advice on every site I've been to so far) because it isn't listed there.
There may or may not be any connection whatsoever, but around the same time I think my system was infected with the invisible nuisance from hell my system started behaving strangely when I played video files - particularly mpeg-1, which always seems to play in super slo-mo. Many different editing tools and DVD authoring programs have suddenly become very finnicky about which types of files they will accept, when they weren't doing that before. What do you think might be the cause of this? And if some of my Windows system files have become corrupt, how do I repair them?

chaslang · Jan 16, 2005

Our procedures should be followed and I'll add one more thing at the end.

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.

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

Also download this: Generic Find It Tool - NT/2000/XP

Extract all the files from the Generic Tool into its own folder.
Then run find.bat. Post the log it creates back here as an attachment.

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Invisible Malware

chrisjdel Private E-2

chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member