Virus? Adware? Malware?

Xaquin

I have a computer problem. A largish one I fear.

Last night, my computer was so borked that windows wouldn't start. I ended up having to boot from the CD and hit the repair option. After that, I ran my antivirus (Avast Current Free edition) and it took out some 44 odd files. I ran AdAware (current free version) and it found nothing. I ran CCleaner (current version) and got rid of some probably harmless junk.

NOW, every time I do a google search, the search results will show up, but when I click on a link it redirects me to random websites. I've run Avast again (found nothing) and I've run AdAware again (and found nothing)

any ideas?

i really really really don't want to reformat, but I feel like my options are starting to wear thin

edit: and also, for some reason, every time I restart now, 'my documents' opens without me clicking the icon.

urahonky

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Try that and HijackThis (http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/) otherwise you've got to reformat. Sorry mang.

Xaquin

thanks honky, trying malwarebytes first (I'm not sure I'm competent enough for HiJackthis)

Dee Kae

The same thing bricked my computer. The only thing that worked was reformattin'. This seems pretty common but as far as I know there's no fix for search links being hijacked.

SkyCaptain

There is, it's called boot from a LiveCD, which you need to create on another computer or have prepared beforehand. I don't have the links handy though. I've never had to use one. I had to download malwarebytes on a different computer and run it from a usb drive when I fixed someone else's computer that had the link redirection problem.

fightinfilipino

i think you're just going to have to reformat.

i've seen this crop up at my school recently, some type of rootkit virus that is not picked up by standard antivirus or antimalware software.

when my boss did some work on the most recent machine with this crap on it, he used Rootkit Repeal to clean the machine. however, this is no guarantee your system will no longer be compromised.

like Ripley said, just nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Xaquin

fightinfilipino wrote: »

i think you're just going to have to reformat.

i've seen this crop up at my school recently, some type of rootkit virus that is not picked up by standard antivirus or antimalware software.

when my boss did some work on the most recent machine with this crap on it, he used Rootkit Repeal to clean the machine. however, this is no guarantee your system will no longer be compromised.

like Ripley said, just nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

yeah, I got malwarebytes to run on it and while it did find a few more things, the rerouted links continued =(

oh well

thanks all

Beltaine

Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and I think Sophos all have bootable live CD's you can download and burn. They update during boot, then you scan all your drives and it can actually remove all the crap since Windows isn't locking system files down.