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 Recently I was browsing questionable sites and downloaded a program. It was a Winrar opened installer and I extracted a few times. This morning I turned on my computer and it was running very slow. I also noticed two new icons that said linked to some odd sites. I ran my spyware program and found some and quarintined them. I tried to use system restore
but all my points were gone. I also keep getting popups from my quick launch toolbar telling me I have different viruses. I dont know what to do and hope you can help.
Answer Ouch! It sounds like you opened one of those game hack programs that hid something dangerous. Have you used your computer for buying things or managing a bank or brokerage account? If so, you ought to be on high alert from someone using this to steal from you. If I were in your situation, I would ask my credit card companies for new card numbers -- and do so over the phone! Also, if your computer connects to the Internet through a phone line, you should watch your phone bills carefully. If expensive long distance or 900 calls show up, you can get rid of these charges because they were done by the infection on your computer.
Now here's how to get rid of that infection. Download the free one month trial of F-Secure Internet Security from https://store.f-secure.com/cgi-bin/dlreg/ml=EN?ID=FSISTB&desid=TRIAL
Then before installing it, uninstall your current antivirus program. You can leave your spyware program running as it won't conflict with F-Secure.
If this doesn't work, let me know and I'll tell you how to "nuke" your computer. It's what a repair shop would do.
After you get rid of your problem, you can either go back to using your old antivirus and spyware programs and stop installing dangerous programs that they aren't good enough to stop, or buy F-Secure or any of the other complete Internet Security suites. Ones you get for free aren't that good!
