AboutCarolyn Meinel Expertise I cover Windows, Unix, TCP/IP and Ethernet security questions. I do not cover Mac, Palm Pilot, or other networking issues.
Experience Books by Carolyn Meinel: wrote a chapter for The Hacking of America book (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567204600/happyhacker)
My article Code Red for the Web for Scientific American was reprinted in the book Best American Science Writing 2002 (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060936509/happyhacker). My book The Happy Hacker: A Guide to Mostly Harmless Hacking is now in 4th edition with a Japanese edition (see http://happyhacker.org/hhbook/).
Question i have gotten a virus which turned my desktop white with a box in the middle that said something to the effect of "Spyware FOund on Your computer". it also said that win32/Privacyremover.m64 and win32/adware... found on the computer. Those might not be the exact quotes because i found out how to change it off my desktop. The virus also removed the tabs in the display options of changing desktop or screensavers. Ihave fixed that problem but the virus seems to interfering with my internet connection....causing popups and some sites such as Yahoo and Google not to work properly. I have run a few different virus protections and spy ware and nothing has worked.....can uhelp?
Answer Welcome to the Russian Mafia, delivered fresh to your desktop daily! Seriously, the infection you describe is one of several crime botnets that make illicit money by getting people to click on ads (those popups) which cause ad revenue to be paid to them. These crime groups operate freely in many corrupt countries, with Russia being a big one, and -- shock shock -- even South Ossetia is notorious because the Russian "peacekeepers" have been keeping Georgian police from busting them. (South Ossetia also hosts a sophisticated printing plant that is churning out counterfeit $100 US bills. Over $20 million worth of them have been seized in the U.S. so far.)
Here's what will almost certainly work.
1) Download either Kapersky Internet Security, which offers a free 30 day trial at http://kapersky.com, or F-Secure's Complete Internet security suite, which offers a free thirty day trial: https://store.f-secure.com/cgi-bin/dlreg/ml=EN?ID=FSISTB&desid=TRIAL
2) Disconnect from the Internet.
3) Uninstall your current antivirus. This is absolutely essential because otherwise it and F-Secure or Kapersky will fight each other and might crash your computer. It isn't good enough to just turn off your old antivirus because it probably has been crippled by your virus infection.
4) Install your Internet Security product. Download any updates available.
5) Run a complete scan of your computer. Follow any instructions it might give you.
6) Reboot.
If this works, you can either keep your new Internet Security product or uninstall it and reinstall your old antivirus from either a download of the latest version from their website (if that's how they sell it) or from the disk it was on when you bought it. Be sure to get all the latest updates right away. Usually antivirus companies are pretty good about updating their programs whenever some new attack becomes able to evade or cripple their product.
If you weren't running an antivirus program that includes antispyware protection and a firewall, then I recommend that you not reinstall your old program. Nowadays we need total protection, and this includes antispyware and a firewall.
7) To prevent future infections, don't use Internet Explorer, as it is susceptible to introducing viruses, adware and spyware into your computer. Instead you could use Firefox, free from Mozilla.org . Instead of using Outlook for email, you could use Thunderbird, free from Mozilla.org, or Eudora, free from Eudora.com .
