help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

I set up a mate on ntl 1mb broadband using ntl netguard, spybot, microsoft and yahoo antispy.
his pc has come to a standstill, it wont even boot without all sorts of popups
his daughter of 14 says she only uses msn (i think not)
his wife says the pc is rubbish and that is why
we say its the daughter downloading rubbish and allowing it in.
please vote on what you think so we can show her
along with your views thanks :)

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

open and shut case, i'd say ;)

sounds like a reformat is in the works... and a rapid downgrading of access privileges!

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

seen this with kids and msn they listen to there m8s and download pants. I wonder how many seriously crippled pcs there are out there (and why aint they all paying me loads for fixing them;))

wb btw BMX :)

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

My lads PC is crawling along with loadsa pop ups 21 and not a clue, i'm nearly 60 and my PC running sweet as a nut. :D

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Its clicking yes to everything that does it.Kids and others (lots of others) do not read when there installing its just yes yes yes to everything,so in fact not a lot is spuriously installed its mostly invited in and installed by users

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Like opening the window to a vampire :disturbd:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

cheers, back in the world of broadband therefore back on the forum!

</ :notopic:> :)

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

UPDATE: spybot is still running a scan that i started 10 mins before i started this thread :Yikes:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

if it's really, really infested then a reformat may well be a good idea... not strictly necessary but the registry and such could be a tad messy, if it we're me i'd prefer to start again from scratch.

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

nahh its in there house and they need to learn a lesson in dont click if you dont know :nono:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

I think you have the answer from the poll Mark lol

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

yep thanks but we have just spoken to his wife and she says
"if it was right it wouldnt happen" :confused: i give up

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

a friend of mine was having a very similar problem...his daughter reckoned she was only using it for messenger...no one else at the house used the pc...yet it ran like a pig and had constant popups.
they had an up to date norton 2005 Av/firewall, MS antispyware/malicious software removal tool, adaware and spybot... but nowt could get rid of the rubbish on the pc (specificaly aurora and abetterinternet cr*p)
i came across the info below and went through it on that pc and it found ...and more importantly, removed a hell of a lot of trojans, virii, adware and spyware.
the pc is now running like a dream :)

here's where i found the info and is the 2nd thread titled 'abetterinternet uninstall tool, and is the post by pcbutts1
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/com...xp=&sloc=en-us

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

The pc is fubard ive unplugged and disabled the internet and its still getting pop ups, saying page cant be displayed, and spybot cant run 2 secs without these boxes popping up 10 fold and locking the pc :mad:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

try rebooting in safe mode?
or do a repair installation?

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Have you tried Safe Mode?

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Safe mode! the thing wants slinging at a wall

i hate young teenagers that think they know it all (not you wayne the muppet across the road)
"rant on" why should i have to sort this out its not my problem
there are lots of people that are very happy and no problems
its just a pratt of a girl that thinks she knows best "rant off"
I need a beer :mad:

Advice: never do a favour for a mate

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Wipe it.

I've spent all day saying this...

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

to who ???
but yes its going format or die :tu:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Similar things- random n00bs calling in not knowing a mouse from a modem, gone on the net, pc got pwnd by various viruses and malware... too much to save. Miracle some of them load XP TBF.

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

fair enough do you recommend a huge hammer (not for the pc):devsmoke:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Nope, educate her into the joys of NOT using M$ Internet Spywareloader 6 and get her to use Netscape/Opera/FX instead. Lock the PC down so her A/C doesn't have Admin rights... install Spyware Guard /AdAware / Spybot / MS AntiSpyware too.

No wonder I've become a coffee addict, dealing with n00bs does my head in...

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Its all there mate she just clicks yes to all the nasties :(

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

FFS then, teach her the hard way.

Back up the docs, including hers, but back up hers to separate CD and HIDE THEM.

Then wipe the PC and restore everything apart from her stuff, and tell her you "forgot" to back them up, and tell her if she keeps clicking yes then you'll have to keep wiping it and every time you'll lose all your stuff...

She'll learn not to click yes, if you sell it as such a bad thing, like she'll get all her money/identity stolen by these programs, data loss, etc- sell her the worst case scenario, will put her off. Trouble with most 14 y/os is that they THINK they know everything. ;)

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

looks like its a full wash and wipe now and a full wax with net nanny just to please her dad :D

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

she needs to clean off the pr0n, such a bad habit for one so young :D ;)

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

you aint kidding (but i aint telling her dad) i told him its just one of them things that happens when you download crap :Yikes:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Tell her then.

And do what I said- imagine her face when you tell her all her school/GCSE work has "gone" because of her pr0n habit :D

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Don't know if any one else uses it but I tend to use a nice basic little program called easy cleaner from Toni arts as it clears out a lot of the temp files etc plus its got a pretty basic reg cleaner in it that is safe for the computer illegitimate to use. Its a bit too old for spyware or anything along those lines but i find it useful to clear a lot of the rubbish out before going in with a proper registry editer.

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

If she's been using IE (highly likely if she's on MSN), there could be anything on the PC - including trojans and other stuff which Spybot, Ad-Aware and even Norton AV can't even find, let alone destroy.

Been there, done that. Believe. :mad: See my earlier post; search for 'usefull websites' [sic] for a list of sites which helped me destroy a particularly nasty and stubborn piece of scumware.

When it comes to IE, it's rather like installing this, that and the other anti-burglar measures in and around your house, and then forgetting to shut the front door. Its security most closely resembles a fishing net...you know, the sort with 9" holes. The problem, of course, is ActiveX. One solution is to force IE to ask if the user wants to run an ActiveX control...but judging by your earlier posts, she'll likely say 'yes' without having the faintest idea what she's saying 'yes' to.

Best answer: restricted rights on the account, plus denial of the right to use IE for all users except the administrator. And don't let her look over your shoulder when you're typing the password. :D

Good luck.

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

try setting up a new user and delete all files from old user. Failing that stuff it format machine create a ghost image and tell her if it happens again she loses everything and just ghost it back. Ive done this amazing how the will to save valuble mp3s makes then try harder to be careful

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Is it wise to have so many anti-spyware programmes installed and running ? I agree with the Clean Format of the PC as a start and then installing just the one anti-virus/spyware programme. Set the PC up so the kid has no administrator privilages whatsoever and password everything you can.

;)

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Put her Windows ME on then she will BSOD whenever she tries to do anything.

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

With all the junk floating around the Internet even on legit sites? Yes, it damn well is. I might point out that the very first piece of scumware my PC caught - that damn Sasser worm - came from NTL itself. It wasn't there until I gave my Win 2000 partition Internet access, and it was there immediately afterwards - and I hadn't browsed any site other than NTL's home page (needless to say, less than three hours after this, I'd downloaded the Microsoft patch, bought & installed McAfee Firewall and bought VirusScan Online :)). So if our own ISP isn't entirely safe, it behooves all of us to protect ourselves as much as possible.

Which means staying away from Kazaa and MSN, of course. :p:

Besides, not all anti-spyware programs are running all the time; Ad-Aware, Spybot and HijackThis, to name three, don't do anything until you run them - it's the commercial third party software such as NAV, McAfee, Panda and ZA that run in the background. If you have broadband, they must run continuously, because broadband is of course an always-on service, unlike dialup. Ironic that we were actually safer back then, isn't it? :rolleyes:

There was a time that such software was an option, and the vast majority of Internet users simply didn't need it. That time is now long past. Protection is now a necessity. Even Microsoft has, finally, woken up to this; they've created their own AV software which, I believe, effectively becomes part of Windows. Windows has until now had no AV measures incorporated into it.

Hopefully the issue of IE's vulnerability to ActiveX controls will be addressed in IE7. We shall see.

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

So, have you had a prod in the cache and history folder? Print out the history list and place it in subtle places in the house.
__________________

And in future - make a script/batch file that runs periodicly to backup the history :D

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

its a mates pc across the road, and it is now unplugged from the internet pending full wipe & reinstall
it is then having net nanny set very high and no admin rights
he has asked me to be admin so even he cant mess it up :disturbd:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Set net nanny to log, email you and display some nasty message! That should scare her!

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

Thanks for all the feedback, ive shown the evidence to his wife

and guess what, its still not there daughters fault :confused:
so on that i'm not going to help again when it clusters :mad:

Re: help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses
 

That's absurd. If the girl has her own account, if that's the only one she's been using, and that the log shows her account was used to let the stuff in, then how can it not be her fault?

Never mind. You tried. The only thing you can really do now is leave 'em to it.