Hi Rob - It sounds like you've been hijacked. If you go to this page at Jim
Eshelman's site, here:
http://aumha.org/a/noads.htm and wait a little bit
(be patient), an analysis of a number of possible parasites on your machine
will be made to help you identify and remove them. NOTE: You will need to
disable Ad Blocking in Zone Alarm 3.x, if present or any other Ad Blocking
software which interferes with Java Scripting for this scan to work. You
should get a message between the two lines of **** giving the results of the
scan.
For the general hijack case, the best way to start is to get Ad-Aware 6.0,
Build 162 or later, here:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/.
Update and run this regularly to get rid of most "spyware/hijackware" on
your machine.
Another excellent program for this purpose is SpyBot Search and Destroy
available here:
http://security.kolla.de/ SpyBot Support Forum here:
http://www.net-integration.net/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi. I recommend
using both normally. After fixing things with SpyBot S&D, be sure to
re-boot and rerun SpyBot again and repeat this cycle until you get a clean
"no red" scan.
Note that sometimes you need to make a judgement call about what these
programs report as spyware. See here, for example:
http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm
Lastly, a very useful utility for examining your system and correcting
problems is Hijack This, which you can download here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip See also,
HijackThis Quick Start Help,
http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/ (Recommended)
This site has a number of useful references and information also:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/ and here
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads.php
Another program giving a good inventory of all of the possible start vectors
is AutostartExplorer, here:
http://www.misec.net/aexp.jsp While it doesn't
allow control of startups, it's extremely comprehensive in examining all of
the possible sources. Highly Recommended
Next, go here:
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml and get Mike Lin's
Startup Control Panel applet. A somewhat more difficult to use but more
extensive program to do the same thing is StartupList from here:
http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html, or even better, Autoruns from
here:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml#autoruns. Be
very careful about doing any Registry modifications directly unless you're
comfortable with this, and be sure that you BACKUP your Registry before
making any changes, so that you can recover if something goes wrong.
Changes made with StartUpCPL are less likely to cause problems, and are
usually a matter of just re-enabling the particular program. Another
program of this type that I can recommend is StartMan, free, here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/startman/. If you have problems with
suspected hijackers, you can look up and investigate suspect programs in
your StartUp lists here:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm (Recommended)
http://www.3feetunder.com/krick/startup/list.html (Recommended)
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm (Recommended)
Some hijackers install themselves as Browser Helper Objects. Get BHOCop
here: BHO Cop
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,270,00.asp
(Unfortunately, no longer free from that link but you can read about it
there, and here is a direct download link for it:
http://websec.arcady.fr/bhocop.zip) and take a look at what BHO's are
currently installed. Some things like AdShield and Acrobat are normal, but
if you see something that doesn't make any sense, try disabling it and see
if that helps. Another excellent program for this same purpose is BHODemon,
(still free) here:
http://www.definitivesolutions.com/ or here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/bhod/ I would recommend both. You can
also check/control BHO's using the Tools function of SpyBot S&D.
There's good information about hijacking and fixes available here:
Andrew Clover's parasite page:
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/ (Highly
recommended)
Robert Allen's parasite page:
http://allentech.net/parasite/index.phtml
(Highly recommended)
http://www.spywareinfo.com/hijacked.html
http://gmpservicesinc.com/Articles/hijack.asp (links here for .reg files to
lock and unlock your homepage, BTW. You can also use this program to toggle
locking/unlocking of your homepage:
http://www.dougknox.com/security/scripts/nosethomepage.vbs Recommended)
http://www.mvps.org/inetexplorer/answers.htm#home_page
Also, there's a new class of hijacker using Window's Messenger Service (not
Instant Messaging, BTW). See: Messenger Service Window That Contains an
Internet Advertisement Appears
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=330904
which identifies reasons to keep this service and steps to take if you do.
You can test your system and follow the 'Prevention' link to get additional
information here:
http://www.mynetwatchman.com/winpopuptester.asp.
These are due to open NetBios ports 135, 137-139 and
445. You really need to block these with a firewall as a general
protection measure. You can stop the popups by turning off Messenger
Service; however, this still leaves you vulnerable.
Messenger Service is not per se Spyware or something that MS did wrong - It
provides a messaging capability which is useful for local intranets and is
also sometimes (albeit nowdays infrequently) used by some applications to
provide popup messaages to users. However, it can also be (and now
frequently is) used to introduce spam via this open NetBios channel.
For a single user home computer, it normally isn't needed and can be
turned off which will eliminate the spam popups. This DOESN'T, however,
remove the vulnerability of having these ports open, when in fact they
aren't needed, since they can be perverted in other ways as well, some
of which can be much more damaging than just a spam popup.
Unless you have very good reasons to keep this active, it should be turned
off in Win2k and XP. Go here and do what it says:
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/docs/messagepopup/ or, even better, get
MessageSubtract, free, here, which will give you flexible control of the
service and viewing of these messages:
http://www.intermute.com/messagesubtract/help.html Recommended.
(FWIW, ZoneAlarm's default Internet Zone firewall configuration blocks
the necessary ports to prevent this use of Messenger Service. I don't
know the situation with regard to other firewalls.)
Once you get this cleaned up, you might want to consider installing the
Browser Hijack Blaster, SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard here to help prevent
this kind of thing from happening in the future:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/bhblaster.html (Prevents malware BHO's)
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/spywareblaster.html (Prevents malware Active
X installs) (BTW, SpyWare Blaster is not memory resident ... no CPU or
memory load - but keep it updated) The latest version as of this writing
will prevent installation or prevent the malware from running if it is
already installed, and it provides information and fixit-links for a variety
of parasites.
http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html (Monitors for attempts to
install malware) All three Very Highly Recommended.
See if any of this helps and post back with your results.
--
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP
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