Computer Opens to Unwanted Website

[Guest]

All of a sudden my computer (Windows XP, IE 6.0) opens to an unwanted porno
website, and spybot and other utilities don't remove it. I've also restored
my drives to a couple of days before the problem began using the XP restore
utility, and that didn't work either. I'm at a loss.

 

[Vanguardx]

All of a sudden my computer (Windows XP, IE 6.0) opens to an unwanted
porno website, and spybot and other utilities don't remove it. I've
also restored my drives to a couple of days before the problem began
using the XP restore utility, and that didn't work either. I'm at a
loss.

Check your firewall to see to what IP address you are actually
connecting when attempting to go to a good site.

Check your 'hosts' file (sans quotes and no extension) to see if an
entry got shoved in there that will get used first to do an IP name to
IP address lookup. The default hosts file just has an entry for
"127.0.0.1 localhost". Some anti-spyware products will shove in a lot
of entries into this file so, for now, just wipe them all and leave only
the localhost entry as you can later re-add all the other "bad" IP names
using whatever anti-spyware product you used to put them in there.

Check what BHOs (browser helper objects) you have installed. You can
use BHO Demon, IE's Tools -> Internet Options -> Programs tab -> Manage
Add-Ons, or Spybot's BHO tool to see what BHOs are active.

 

[Don Varnau]

Hi,
Go to http://www.aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm Work through steps 1-4, then, if
necessary, post a
HijackThis log for analysis (step 5.)

Hope this helps,
Don

 

[Guest]

Don: Thanks. Aumha (and mwave) seems to have done the trick.