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My Computer Was Hijacked
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| A Message from Rachel Worth May 6, 2004 (Torrance, CA) Malicious hackers, spammers and virus spreaders--who seemingly have nothing better to do--have been hard at work once again, causing untold headaches for many businesses and individuals. Well, this time they got me! I had not downloaded my Critical Updates from Windows and that left me vulnerable to attack. I can't stress enough to UPDATE YOUR WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM! I worked almost around the clock for three days using all the most commonly suggested programs to try and rid my computer of this malicious code. It was causing all sorts of strange things to happen. It kept changing my home page to "searchmeup.com." No matter how many times I changed it in every place in the registry and in the Intenet Options menu, it kept changing it back. It caused dozens of small windows to pop up randomly that said "Already running!!!". It installed three dialers that would dial a long distance number on my phone line through a data line attached to my computer. Luckily, for some reason, the calls were blocked and could not connect. At various times, programs would cease to function. Sometimes, I couldn't get on the Internet at all; other times I could get my Outlook e-mail but I couldn't open Internet Explorer. Other strange things occurred, too. I know some of you reading this have been or will be affected by this new wave of cyber attacks. You're probably wondering how I finally got it fixed. It wasn't any one thing. But, what I first did five days ago was to upgrade to Norton Antivirus 2004 and make sure I ran Live Update to have the most current virus definitions. A scan with Norton found a few viruses, which it quarantined. Then I ran CW Shredder, Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Hijack This. All of those programs found suspicious files and registry code, but deleting some of the files they found still didn't keep some of them from coming back. Then, someone suggested using AntiVir from free-av.com. You can't have any other antivirus program installed if you install AntiVir, so I had to uninstall my newly bought Norton AV 2004. AntiVir immediately found a malicious dialer (windial32.exe) and a virus (precontrol.exe). Then, I set it to scan all files on my C drive and when it reached the 49,266th file, it froze. I couldn't do a warm boot, so I had to shut down. When I rebooted, AntiVir found two more dialers with long file names that it identified as being viruses. I deleted those. Then, I ran HiJack This again and deleted some more files and then tweaked the registry (which you should never do unless you know what you're doing) and also found a file in my startup files that aroused my suspicion. It was called runwin32.exe, which sounds like a perfectly legitimate file, but my belief is that it was the evil culprit that was causing all the malicious files to keep returning. I unchecked it in my startup files and deleted it in the registry. And, so far, things are looking okay--even better than okay, actually. I had gotten rid of so much spyware and other junk that everything speeded up. I cannot give you detailed instructions on how to do everything I did, because I am definitely not an expert and do not want to be liable if your entire system crashes. All I can say is be careful what you delete. The programs find many things that are okay, but they want to alert you that they are there. There is some spyware that you have authorized by virtue of using their programs, and if you delete any of the files associated with that program, you will no longer be able to use it (Pop Swatter, for instance, which I love). Although I was frustrated and upset, as well as scared that I was going to do something wrong and lose all my data, I also was a bit intrigued by the challenge of doing it myself. I tried to read everything online that I could find to get some ideas on how I might proceed. Anyway, wish me luck. And, if there was ever a justification for capital punishment, this is definitely it. I would not hesitate to be the executioner of these evildoers who cause so much grief for so many (and, honestly, I am such a pacifist!). I appreciate your patience as I try to get caught up on all my news articles and photo galleries. Return to MORE NEWS Return to Worth-a-Million Productions' MAIN MENU |