Hijacking of Homepage.

[Ron P]

What too or application do I need to stop "coolsearch.biz" or such site from
hijacking my home page? I've entered the URL in my TrendMicrocillon
internet protection where it says "URL Filter---Block website Url's" .
That, and my various AD-Aware and Spyblaster, Spybot, and WinPatrol are
doing a fine job of screening out Spyware and viruses.
What do i need to do to block the hijack? Is it yet another anti-spyware
utility that I need?

Thanks, RonP

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Try this program:

CWShredder - http://forum.aumha.org/downloads/cwshredder.zip

Try SpyWareBlaster to stop intrusions:

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Also see the following links:

http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/security/articles/spyware.asp

 

[Ron P]

Wow Will,
I downloaded 'CWShredder.zip' What a fast and helpful response! Thank You.
Ron P
P.S. I just had a message window open asking me if I want to allow
"Coolsearch.biz" to redirect my home page. Do you know if I can arrange a
setting in schedder where this can be done automatically? I did a scan. Do
I only need to click 'fix' when I HAVE an infection?
I ask because there is no manual or 'read me' that came with my download.

thanks, RonP

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

You need to have all Internet Explorer windows closed, then click on 'Fix'.
Any infections will be dealt with by the program. There is some help
available here:

http://forums.spywareinfo.com/
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html

 

[Vanguardx]

What too or application do I need to stop "coolsearch.biz" or such
site from hijacking my home page? I've entered the URL in my
TrendMicrocillon internet protection where it says "URL
Filter---Block website Url's" . That, and my various AD-Aware and
Spyblaster, Spybot, and WinPatrol are doing a fine job of screening
out Spyware and viruses.
What do i need to do to block the hijack? Is it yet another
anti-spyware utility that I need?

Thanks, RonP

If you want to prevent future hijackings, get SpywareGuard
(http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/).

 

[Ron P]

Thanks Vanguardx, But please tell me what I'm doing wrong.
I DO have SpywareGuard and have the homepage hijacking
URL>>coolsearch.biz<<entered as a "restricted site". Still, I find my
homepage hijacked just about every time I draw on it.
Ron P

 

[Vanguardx]

Thanks Vanguardx, But please tell me what I'm doing wrong.
I DO have SpywareGuard and have the homepage hijacking
homepage hijacked just about every time I draw on it.
Ron P

WinPatrol and SpywareGuard are reactive. The web site changes your home
page and then these products detect the change, popup an alert, and let
you change it back to what it was before. That alerts you that the site
made the change (it actually gets effected) and you change it back. Are
you getting prompted by SpywareGuard when the home page gets changed?

What happens when you enter the IP address of your desired home page in
IE's configuration rather than an IP name? With an IP address, no DNS
lookup is required. This also means that there is no lookup in your
client-side DNS cache and no lookup in your 'hosts' file. So you might
think you are navigating to www.optonline.net because that is the *name*
you specified but instead of going to 66.54.41.206 you end up at some
other IP address. A firewall's log that shows the IP address for the
connection will tell you where you really connected. Check your 'hosts'
file. Flush your client-side DNS cache service (ipconfig /flushdns) or
disable it. Also take a look at the output of HijackThis to see if you
notice any processes or configurations that might indicate a hijack.