IE warnings!
A few days ago, Grant and I got hit by something hard. Looks like there is a new virus/spyware/trogan/whatever. For me, it pretty much effect IE. It just stopped working. I thought it was my internet connection. So I tried restarting. (which I did a few times), fiddled with some stuff, ran AVG and nothing helped. Then when AVG updated, we knew the internet was working, just not IE. Sometimes I couldn't even get it to open. We downloaded all kinds of anti spyware, trogan, hijacking programs and nothing was detecting the problem. We did system restores, which worked for about 2 seconds. Before his IE went out, he got Firefox and we put in on my comp.
It only seemed to be effecting IE, so as long as Firefox worked, I didn't care. It seemed to be worse on his system though. It was effecting his start up. We ended up finding the thing when running msconfig and looking in the start up tab. I then tracked in down by it's file name and found out I had a bunch of these little suckers. The domiant one being 424.exe, they were all 3 digit numbers though. We found it on his too. We tried deleted them indiviually, but they somehow came back.
We didn't know what to do now. We assumed that this problem was so new, that no anti virus or anti spyware program could fix it. I tried looking in forums to see if people were having major IE issues, but no luck. We think it hit his comp first, and either transfered by our router, or when he put his flash drive in mine. Where it came from though, we don't know.
We were stuck reformatting our computers. When we started reinstalling programs from our back up disks, the problem happened again. Back to reformatting. We worked on this for days!
I think I had to reformat 3 times. I no longer have the virus/trogan or whatever it is. Grant had to reformat more than me. We aren't sure if it's attatched itself to our dvds we burnt with all our files and programs though. I hope not, because I rather not reformat my computer for the 4th time in a few days. If we can find out what it came from, I'll let you know so you can take precautions.
Right now, we are going to use his computer as the test subject. We are going to try one program at a time on our back up disks, and after each one, check to see if that .exe thing comes back. So far, no. It could be in the router, it could be on his backup drive (he disconnected it after all the reformats to test stuff out).
I've been good all day, but I haven't tryed to reinstall anything. I just have my security programs at the moment.
I found this though, early today.
http://www.switched.com/2009/07/07/serious-flaw-in-ie-leaves-windows-users-vulnerable/1#comments
After reading the comments from this article, it looks like many people had trouble with IE lately. Not sure if it's related, but it seems like it is. My dad even told me that when he downloaded IE8, he had some issues. Not like ours though, but I've told him what to look out for. He switched to Chrome anyway. I didn't have 8 yet when it happened. Most likely I am going to go to Firefox though.
If you use IE and want to check if you have what we had
Go to Start
Then Run
Type in msconfig
Go to the Startup Tab
If you see a 3 digit number under the Startup Item list, and the command name will have the number and be in a temp folder, you have what we had. Besides making it so IE doesn't work at all, it has slowed down start up and sometimes didn't let Grant get past start up at all. It did more to his system, but I would have to ask him about it.
If you do have this problem, deleting the file or .exe won't get rid of it. It seems that only reformatting your computer does the trick.
It only seemed to be effecting IE, so as long as Firefox worked, I didn't care. It seemed to be worse on his system though. It was effecting his start up. We ended up finding the thing when running msconfig and looking in the start up tab. I then tracked in down by it's file name and found out I had a bunch of these little suckers. The domiant one being 424.exe, they were all 3 digit numbers though. We found it on his too. We tried deleted them indiviually, but they somehow came back.
We didn't know what to do now. We assumed that this problem was so new, that no anti virus or anti spyware program could fix it. I tried looking in forums to see if people were having major IE issues, but no luck. We think it hit his comp first, and either transfered by our router, or when he put his flash drive in mine. Where it came from though, we don't know.
We were stuck reformatting our computers. When we started reinstalling programs from our back up disks, the problem happened again. Back to reformatting. We worked on this for days!
I think I had to reformat 3 times. I no longer have the virus/trogan or whatever it is. Grant had to reformat more than me. We aren't sure if it's attatched itself to our dvds we burnt with all our files and programs though. I hope not, because I rather not reformat my computer for the 4th time in a few days. If we can find out what it came from, I'll let you know so you can take precautions.
Right now, we are going to use his computer as the test subject. We are going to try one program at a time on our back up disks, and after each one, check to see if that .exe thing comes back. So far, no. It could be in the router, it could be on his backup drive (he disconnected it after all the reformats to test stuff out).
I've been good all day, but I haven't tryed to reinstall anything. I just have my security programs at the moment.
I found this though, early today.
http://www.switched.com/2009/07/07/serious-flaw-in-ie-leaves-windows-users-vulnerable/1#comments
After reading the comments from this article, it looks like many people had trouble with IE lately. Not sure if it's related, but it seems like it is. My dad even told me that when he downloaded IE8, he had some issues. Not like ours though, but I've told him what to look out for. He switched to Chrome anyway. I didn't have 8 yet when it happened. Most likely I am going to go to Firefox though.
If you use IE and want to check if you have what we had
Go to Start
Then Run
Type in msconfig
Go to the Startup Tab
If you see a 3 digit number under the Startup Item list, and the command name will have the number and be in a temp folder, you have what we had. Besides making it so IE doesn't work at all, it has slowed down start up and sometimes didn't let Grant get past start up at all. It did more to his system, but I would have to ask him about it.
If you do have this problem, deleting the file or .exe won't get rid of it. It seems that only reformatting your computer does the trick.