The F5 of Trojan Viruses
F5 usually refers to the most destructive tornadoes. An F5 is so destructive that an F6 doesn't even exist.
So I caught a virus on my computer. It's not an ordinary virus that can be cleaned up with virus removal software either. So guess who has to reformat her disk again? I just bought a bunch of CD's to back up all my stuff. I just hope none of my files are infected or else I'm back to square one.
I just wanted to warn everyone, because this is how I caught it. I did a google search for desktop wallpaper and clicked on a link. That's all it took.
I read that some MySpace and Xanga pages are infected too, and the link I clicked on advertised wallpaper for MySpace pages.
Symptoms:
- Your desktop will turn red and even when you try to change it back, it will change itself back to red.
- It will make itself the administrator of your computer. I can't use my task manager (the pop-up box when you press CTRL+ALT+DEL).
- It goes through firewalls. I was using the Windows XP firewall and not only did it go through, it took over it. It's now locked on "OFF" and I can't change it to "ON". Only the system administrator can change it, which is now the virus.
- You get pop-ups from the taskbar that look like Microsoft pop-ups. They tell you that you're system is infected and then automatically direct you to a website called antispywaresolutions.com (don't go there) and advise you to buy their software. I just want to say that if you want me to buy your anti-virus software, putting a fucking virus on my computer is not a good marketing strategy.
- Everytime you click on IE or Mozilla, it will take you to their website. If you try to go to another website, you'll get a blank page. After a few tries I did manage to get to the website I was looking for though.
- I ran three different spyware removal programs: Windows Live OneCare, TrendMicro, and AVG (these are all free (except for Live OneCare which has a free trial period). They are all good spyware detector/removal programs). None of them could get rid of it though. It detected the viruses, but each time I got a message saying that it was unable to access the infected files to delete or clean them.
- I manually deleted the files (risky, I know) and they regenerated themselves as soon as I brought up IE.
- Talked to the Geek Squad. They said they can go in and get rid of it, but because it's connected itself to system files, it may hide and reappear again. Best bet: reformat.
About the Geek Squad, I'm going to give them a little plug here because they are good and they know computers. I don't think they allow just anyone on the Geek Squad, I think they put them through some Navy Seals type of computer skills test because they are that good and they take computers seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they refer to themselves as "Agent Johnson" or "Agent Smith," and (I swear to God) use terms like "covert operations" and "special task force." I'm not kidding. Go to their website and use their chat system. They say things like that. So I recommend the Geek Squad, when an ordinary geek won't do and you need a special agent geek. I love these guys.
I managed to stop the pop-ups for now. I downloaded AVG's virus update and ran it. Now I can use my computer again (somewhat normally--still having a few problems though), but the virus is still on here.
