Malware I NEED YOUR HELP......

[Vector]

Something called www.searching.com has hijacked my browser and I cannot remove it with any known tools that I've tried. It got around Norton Security Deluxe and Malwarebytes, Spybot or Ad-Aware can't find it or eliminate it.


All sorts of pop-ups are now invading my computer faster than I can uninstall them, and to add insult to injury, this thing resists any attempt to even search for a cure. It won't let me access Google, Bing, Ask.com or any other search engine,but itself and of course it won't put me in touch with those search engines through itself. I have increasingly limited ability to surf the web (it took 15 minutes of repeated attempts to reach Timebomb 2000 from the damn thing's home page!).


Any help from you guys would be greatly appreciated. Please, no lectures about the folly of using IE or the virtues of Firefox. It has denied me access to my backup Firefox browser,too!


Thank you.


Oh, DO NOT sign on to that website. I did not, it just showed up to me, probably on a You Tube video I downloaded.

 

[CGTech]

Have you tried doing a system restore, back to an earlier point?

 

[Vector]

Have you tried doing a system restore, back to an earlier point?

Yes I have. IIRC, that's what caused this nightmare in the first place. I did a system restore to a point 3 weeks earlier BEFORE all of this happened because I was unhappy with the performance of a Real Player update I had installed.

Then the bottom fell out.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Go to your start icon at the bottom left of your screen (where you go to shut down). In the search box, search for "run". It should pop up as the first choice.

Once in run, put in msconfig

When you're in msconfig, go to the startups tab. See what's running. If you see any toolbars or anything that looks like that program, deactivate it to run at startup. Be careful in there, only disable optionable programs. Frankly I have almost everything disabled but you can end up shutting off something you shouldn't so start slow.

Reboot. If the program was running at startup and this stopped it, you should be fine as long as it doesn't start up again. you will need to uninstall the program once it stops running, which you can do through your control panel. An easy way to find it is to organize that by date instead of by name (click on the date tab to have that happen), and see what programs have recently installed on your computer as this is a recent problem.

If that works, come back and let me know and I'll walk you through installing ccleaner, which allows you to do the same thing, and allows you to disable and then come back and enable again if it's a problem that you disabled something critical (ask me how I know this.... ). It will also allow you to uninstall it. It's a great program, everyone should have it on their computer for emergencies like this.

One last thing - real player probably put that on your computer, stay away from that if you can.

HD

 

[summerthyme]

One last thing - real player probably put that on your computer, stay away from that if you can.

'

Yeah, that was what I was thinking. I rarely install new software anymore, but the last couple of times I did download from "trusted" download sites, I was appalled at how many 'Opt out" screens you had to go through before installing. Well... I call them "opt out" screens, but they are labeled in a way that they SEEM to be mandatory. You have to read the fine print to find out what they're installing (and that it has nothing to do with the software that you wanted to install!)

Hopefully, HD's advice will work. Some of these things seem to burrow SO deeply into the infrastructure of the machine that it seems to be nearly impossible to get rid of them.

If you haven't already backed up your files to an external HD, I'd strongly suggest it be done now!
Summerthyme

 

[Ku Commando]

Here, take your pick of fixes to remove "searching.c0m"

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=www.searching.com%20virus

 

[Vector]

IT WORKED!!!!!

Thanks to everyone for your advice and suggestions. I did what you suggested, Helios Disciple The "msconfig" showed me something called "Get The Results" installed on 12-12-2015. I shut that little demon off. After rebooting, Norton immediately gave me a warning that a Trojan called---wait for it---"Get The Results" had taken up residence on my computer. Norton then removed it from the premises.

To be on the safe side, I ran my Malwarebytes and Hijack This! again. Malwarebytes found 654 items of questionable worth on my computer and sent them all to digital hell. I also removed Real Player.

If you haven't already backed up your files to an external HD, I'd strongly suggest it be done now!
Summerthyme

Doing this too!


I have my beloved computer back again!


Once again thanks to all of you.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

That's great!

Now you need to install CCleaner on your computer. I need to sign off in a minute so I'll come back on tonight and give you instructions (with graphics I'll make) on how to use it.

http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

 

[TxGal]

HD - I'm going to print this thread out and save it for future use, just in case - this is extremely helpful info!!

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Glad to help. TxGal you need to download CCleaner as well and save these directions too.

Once you have CCleaner installed you can use it daily to clean up the traces on your computer. But when you get in trouble this is how it helps.

See the first image I attached. You want to click on TOOLS.

See the second image I attached. Once you are in TOOLS, click on Startup. Once you are there, you want to see what is enabled under all the tabs (Windows, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Scheduled Tasks and Context Menu). If something is enabled for startup that is not part of Microsoft, your mouse, your speakers, intel, or your addons, chances are you don't need it running. You can highlight that line and click on DISABLE. *Never click on delete on your first go-through*, you may disable something you actually need and will need to be able to re-enable it without a hassle. Just disable it to start. If it's a suspected virus, after a few starts without issue you can go back and delete it, but if you're not sure what it is or what it's doing, better to be safe by only disabling it.

Had you had ccleaner installed, you could have used it to disable Get the Results without needing to use msconfig. Msconfig works great, this is a little easier and safer because you are disabling not deleting.

See the third image I attached. Once you disable things from startup and your computer works great again, go into uninstall and click on the Install Date box - this will arrange all your programs by date. You may need to click twice to get it to go from most recent to least recent. (Usually when I initially click it starts with the first program I install, so I click again to get it to start with the last one I installed.) I painted over my programs in that image because no one needs to see my programs , but you will get a list, by date of what you installed on your computer. If you have a recent problem, see what's there that you don't remember installing and delete it. You can do the same thing in your control panel, this seems like an easier way to do it. ymmv.

Good luck!
HD

 

[brudog]

Excellent thread, everyone..

 

[Keysey]

Any recommendations for a mac computer?

 

[Buick Electra]

btt