SP3 Malware?

[leeshor]

It's easier than many people think. Getting a search link that takes you to a site with cross script Java injections is one way. Another is simply doing a search on something topical. like lava in Hawaii and getting a bad link. Downloading software you think is supposed to help your system in some way is a great way to get malware. I have dozens of examples from a handful of customers. Even one that got a malware infection doing a Christmas cookie search December 2 years ago.

Unfortunately most anti virus software won't stop some of the malware that was asked to enter your system. In short you gave it permission.

 

[daniielrp]

It's easier than many people think. Getting a search link that takes you to a site with cross script Java injections is one way. Another is simply doing a search on something topical. like lava in Hawaii and getting a bad link. Downloading software you think is supposed to help your system in some way is a great way to get malware. I have dozens of examples from a handful of customers. Even one that got a malware infection doing a Christmas cookie search December 2 years ago.

Unfortunately most anti virus software won't stop some of the malware that was asked to enter your system. In short you gave it permission.

That last bit is what I see most of when dealing with infected PCs.

No amount of free or paid antivirus software can stop something you have explicitly told Windows you are happy to run/install.
If Badware pops up and says "Press install to get lots of ads", and you press install, then nothing malicious has gone on, you've agreed and it'll give you ads like it said it would, and your antivirus/spyware won't flag it as it's just doing what it is supposed to.

Only one thing is gonna help - being sensible with what you click on.

 

[annabanana]

Even being careful with what you click on doesn't always protect from malware. Reference Leesport's second sentence two posts up.

 

[Liam2349]

That last bit is what I see most of when dealing with infected PCs.

No amount of free or paid antivirus software can stop something you have explicitly told Windows you are happy to run/install.
If Badware pops up and says "Press install to get lots of ads", and you press install, then nothing malicious has gone on, you've agreed and it'll give you ads like it said it would, and your antivirus/spyware won't flag it as it's just doing what it is supposed to.

Only one thing is gonna help - being sensible with what you click on.

I don't know how every antivirus suite handles this, but when I download freeware that has some malware in the exe, or some crap that is just going to pop up ads all the time, AVG removes it from the installer.

 

[malberttoo]

Unfortunately most anti virus software won't stop some of the malware that was asked to enter your system. In short you gave it permission.

Too true.

 

[Chris Grew]

Don't just blame yourself!

When I got my SP3 I soon realised that Win 8.1 had at least one piece of advertising software. The removal of wbich added several other advertising software programmes!

I first went to uninstall and spotted the software and uninstalled it. Not easy when it tries to install several more programmes for every uninstall!

I then ran the following in this sequence:

ADW Cleaner
RKill
ComboFix
TDSS Killer

Available from Bleeping Counter

Then download and run
Malawarebytes

Finally install the free version of Avira and run all the time like Malawarebytes.

What was shocking is just how much was on a couple of day old computer!

Since then all is fine.

Regards

Chris

 

[gdir]

When I got my SP3 I soon realised that Win 8.1 had at least one piece of advertising software. The removal of wbich added several other advertising software programmes!

I first went to uninstall and spotted the software and uninstalled it. Not easy when it tries to install several more programmes for every uninstall!

Can you name that software? My SP3 was (and still is) clean.

 

[Chris Grew]

Hi gdir,

Sorry, I cannot remember other than spotting something looked odd about it. I seem to recall some of it had the word 'shop' in it, but not all of them.

I would click on a web page or a link in a web page and the screen would flash a few times, I spotted various things happening very quickly with new windows opening up. It took me back to the early days of being on the internet, when you would suddenly find a web page you had not asked for - usually porn - you shut it down and another 10 pages would open! It was a nightmare trying to sort it with little skills at computers.

Of course this problem was when the SP3 was almost new, so there was not much in the 'uninstall' list.

The important thing I found was to look and then google anything I did not recognise.

Best regards


Chris