Instead of working online today like a normal person, I spent the ENTIRE day trying to get a virus off my computer. The last time this happened I had to call the Geek Squad and spent $170!!! to get it removed.
I simply could not afford to do that again and set out to clean it myself.
The virus (or spyware, malware, or whatever it is) was not as bad as the previous time. This time it disabled all my anti virus software and redirected most links when I did a Google search. I had to go through the Google cached version of sites to see instructions on how to remove these things.
It took me a more than a few times to download a special program, malware something (mbam). The first time I tried to run it it wouldn’t work because of the virus, so I had to use some backdoor version that renames the program as something else. Those pesky viruses are pretty clever.
That program removed almost everything, except the most important file, uacinit.dll.
I had to download another program which was a real lifesaver, ComboFix.
All this was like an 8 hour process.
I am not 100% sure it is all gone, but I re-ran all the scanners and nothing came up. I also am no longer getting those redirects on Google.
Praying that this is the end of it.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey! If this ever happens again, try an online virus scanner first like http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
I’ve used this one before when a virus disabled all locally installed anti-virus sfw. It’s a free service. Takes a while but it works.
Also, do you use AVG Free? It’s a great free anti-virus piece of software. Check it out!
Hope this helps in the future… or rather, I hope you don’t have to worry about this again.
-c
Yes, I was using AVG and it didn’t pick up this virus
I think its gone now, it came back after I posted this as another name so I used ComoFix again and changed the setting to not restore after reboot. I think that worked.