virus or what?

[scotty]

hi,i would appricate any help here,i am an extremley basic pc user and recently i have noticed a severe slow down while surfing,my internet icon on desk top doesn't work unless i right click and click run as.... i would guess i am being attacked in some way as i cannot acces any on line security checks,basically any web sites relating to security just doesn't happen,as i say i would appreciate any help at all...and not clued up on pc lingo.many thanx in advance....

[groovicus]

Might want to take a look at this area of the forum.... it should answer most of your questions.

http://www.antionline.com/forumdispl...s=&forumid=677

EDIT: And pardon my bad manners..Welcome to AO

[nihil]

Hi scotty and welcome to AO,

Well, from what you say, I would predict that you have a fine collection of adware, spyware and even the odd trojan and virus. They are so busy using your machine that they are not leaving much for you.

We will need a bit of information:

Do you have an anti virus software package? do you have a firewall? (if so, what? and is it up to date.....that is, have you updated it?)

What operating system are you running?

Cheers

[moxnix]

I agree nihil, and I would guess from what scotty has said so far, that Cool Web Search or one of its varients is the main culprit.
Scotty, let us know what your equipment and operating system is, as well as what antivirus applications and firewalls you may be running. Also let us know approximently when you updated them please. (Especially if it was after or before you became aware of a problem.)
There is alot of application available to help you clean your computer up, and most of them are also free. But to tailor what we can tell you to fit your particular situation, we need to know what you have at present.

[nihil]

Yes Moxnix, Cool Web Search is a favourite, but there are some trojans worms and viruses that attack AV, turn off firewalls and block sites.

This one will need a bit of thinking through, which is why I didn't give my usual "get this, do that"

Over to you scotty

[scotty]

hi guys,not sure if you got my messages but i will post again....i am using windows xp,i updated my norton anti virus 2003 yesterday after i realised there was a problem,as for firewall..mmm not clued up at all,anyway hope this helps...and thanx very much indeed

[moxnix]

Ok, scotty
I will let nihil do the deep thinking about this but I will get you started.
Here are some applications you need to get (all free, by the way):
CWShredder
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4086.html

Note: CoolWWWSearch.SmartKiller (v1 and v2) is a newer, real ugly variant of CoolWWWSearch. When running, it will close every browser window you use to visit a large list of anti-spyware-sites, and even will close Spybot-S&D and some other anti-spyware applications as well. Download CoolWWWSearch.SmartKiller (v1/v2) MiniRemoval which can disable this latest version.

Spybot S&D
http://www.safer-networking.org/
SpywareBlaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
AdAware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Hijackthis
http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html

After downloading and installing these programs, be sure to update them (usually avalible from the consol of each program).
CWShredder must be run from your normal window (I believe) but run the spybot and adaware in safe mode. (Boot your computer and press the F8 key while booting, and choose 'Safe Mode')
Update your antivirus and run it in 'safemode' also. Also it might be worth your while to use a web based antivirus to check things out on. Trend Micro Systems has 'Housecall' that is a web based (free) antivirus. That is at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
After you have cleaned your system, use the immunisization section of Spybot S&D to prevent alot of malware from gaining a foot hold in your system. SpywareBlaster is a complimentery program to Spybot S&D that also prevents most comman malware.

Then let us know how all of this worked, and we can point you in the direction of a good firewall, and/or help you lock your system down by closing unneeded services and such.
Hope this helps you (it should anyway).
[Edit] Use the Hijackthis to copy and past the log it makes to here so that we can see what is happening on your system.