Virus/Spyware/Trojan?

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 3:56 pm

Today when I would click links, it would automatically link me to a google/ebay search for a random word. Also flash would die, and kill firefox. So far I've ran, spybot, ad-aware and avg and nothing has been found. Right now a few other programs are at home running searching for it. I was wondering if anyone has had similar problems, and what fix they did to get rid of it. Formatting is a last option, as I just did it a month or two back and don't really want to have to do it again. And do not recommend me to use linux, mac, or whatever, that is just stupid as it is not a real solution to a problem, just an alternative way of fixing it.

Edit: Also the last few times I have shut down a program "m" has had to stop responding before I shut down. I googled m.exe, and it gave me a IROffer backdoor that people use for xdcc bots and such, however it does not show it running in task manager. Is there a way it is running hidden from task manager, and I can diable it? It does not always appear, but it does every so often. Not sure why someone would root my slow upload connection for a bot, and there is no missing space on my HDDs that shoe it.

lynx44 · Post by **lynx44** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:56 pm

I have no idea if this will stop it or not, but I recently used a program called Startup Mechanic to stop a whole bunch of processes from being executed when Windows boots. If nothing else, you can at least stop other unneccessary start ups from happening. You can find it on download.com, and I'm sure a bunch of other places, and its free.

-Matt

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:50 pm

I ended up formatting :/. Now time to reinstall everything.

Stormwatch · Post by **Stormwatch** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:42 pm

Why reinstall? Take this as an opportunity to move to a more reliable operating system.

Juan · Post by **Juan** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:46 pm

Stormwatch wrote:Why reinstall? Take this as an opportunity to move to a more reliable operating system... IN MY PANTS

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:02 pm

Stormwatch wrote:Why reinstall? Take this as an opportunity to move to a more reliable operating system.

Learn to read. And you're also a moron.

Post by **|darc|** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:05 pm

Thomas wrote:
Stormwatch wrote:Why reinstall? Take this as an opportunity to move to a more reliable operating system.
Learn to read. And you're also a moron.

While you're at it, just cancel your internet connection and never get online again. It's really hard to get a virus if you're not online.

zman · Post by **zman** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:21 pm

"m.exe" could have been found by running msconfig and going to starup. That is where I usuallay find my obscure bots. Most of the time they will leave a data trail in the temp file.

Sometimes these things get embedded in the registry. That's when it gets hard to find.

Spybot search & destroy is still a good indicater on who's doing what on your machine.

Majority of the virus programs are lame (suck). The miss quite a lot. In fact I did a comparison off Mcaffee and Symnatec anti-virus. Together there o.k., but ran indivdually each one would miss on viruses I had. I.e. one would detect and the other wouldn't, vice versa. So most of the time I manually hunt when I notice slowdown or redirection.

Prevention is the best method. So double check your programs to make shure they are on there best preventative mesures.

Best advice. Stay off of porn or crack,serial/hack web sites. Stick to PBS and your good.

Oh yeah, don't use Microsoft internet anything and your good.

Post by **melancholy** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:25 pm

Stormwatch wrote:Why reinstall? Take this as an opportunity to move to a more reliable operating system.

Did you know that you are one of the primary reasons why I will not use Linux? Your constant nagging when even the word Windows is mentioned is enough to kill all of my desires to try it. I no longer use Windows just because I like to. No, I use it just to spite you.

Stormwatch · Post by **Stormwatch** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:32 pm

Hey, could be worse... at least you're not on Slashdot.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:54 pm

zman wrote:Best advice. Stay off of porn or crack,serial/hack web sites. Stick to PBS and your good.

Oh yeah, don't use Microsoft internet anything and your good.

I never go to those type of sites or use IE which is weird. Oh well, the format seems to have worked.

lackofsense · Post by **lackofsense** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:26 pm

it's a bug in firefox. You could have just uninstalled and reinstalled firefox. It happened to me as well. Then restart your computer

not just souLLy now · Post by **not just souLLy now** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 6:14 pm

melancholy wrote:
Stormwatch wrote:Why reinstall? Take this as an opportunity to move to a more reliable operating system.
Did you know that you are one of the primary reasons why I will not use Linux? Your constant nagging when even the word Windows is mentioned is enough to kill all of my desires to try it. I no longer use Windows just because I like to. No, I use it just to spite you.

You know if you really wanted to spite him you could go get circumcised

APE · Post by **APE** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 8:02 pm

Linux can't play my games without spending a week doing god knows what to get it to half run.

Stormwatch · Post by **Stormwatch** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 9:28 pm

not just souLLy now wrote: You know if you really wanted to spite him you could go get circumcised

It's not me who would get bummed out after he did that...