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Well, I finally got bit hard by a computer virus. I thought I was relatively web/tech savvy (or at least avoiding the problems in the first place), but it appears I am no superwoman! I somehow got a trojan virus on my computer (I think it came from a dang spam e-mail). No big deal I thought and my virus scan quarantined it.
Well, I went to log into my PayPal account (yes, I typed in PayPal.com and didn’t use any links). I got to what appeared to be the log-in page. I log in, it runs and then brings me back into the log-in page as though nothing has happened and no error message for login failure. I look at the URL in the browser box, everything looks fine. I attempt to login again and it’s running. Finally! (I thought). Then it brings me to a page to “verify my information”. It had a field for everything from my name, address, social security number, date of birth, full credit card information, including, get this..my PIN number. PayPal NEVER asks for a PIN number! (Needless to say I didn’t fall for it, but they now had my PayPal login stuff).
I immediately knew that I was on a bogus site even though the URL box didn’t show it.
I had to call PayPal to get my account shut down until I could figure out what to do. (Ironically, you have to login in order to get the phone number. So I had to call my mom – who logged in as me from her work to get it.) So if anyone needs the number it’s 1-888-221-1161.
The upshot is this: I am now using Firefox (and was able to change passwords and stuff in my PayPal account), but I don’t know how to clear off what is on my Internet Explorer browser so that they don’ keep directing to bad sites. I will probably use Firebox from here on, but I still want correct the problem on the other browser. Does anyone know what to do about something like this? Or should I just call the Geek Squad?
Any advice is welcome.
Maybe you can try to reinstall IE? Also be sure in IE to go to Tools -> Internet Options and clear out your Browsing History.
Two programs I use to help keep my computer clean in addition to my anti-virus program are:
Spybot Search and Destroy – http://www.safer-networking.org/
Ad-Aware – http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
There is a free version of both these programs available and they help catch stuff the anti-virus program might not. I typically run them once a week.
Yikes! I have no idea! I would ask your mom to log in to paypal and change your password for you ASAP! Sorry I cant be more help. Maybe Spybot can help? Its free and removes viruses.
Thank you all for your replies. I’m not sure if those downloads will help. I just called the Geek Squad and they said there are couple of new trojan viruses (this week) that anti-viruses are not catching. They also mentioned it probably wouldn’t be any easy fix. 🙁
Thank you Ski, yes, I already changed my password and my account wasn’t compromised. Thank God for Firefox, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to take care of it.
If I find out anything useful I’ll let you know.
IE does wonderful things like open attachment if the attachment tells it to. That’s probably how you got the virus. I have never used IE or Outlook as an email client because of this troublesome feature. I started on Netscape and now am on Firefox/Thunderbird. Anything that protects me from email viruses is a good thing!! (At work, it was all too common for IE/Outlook users to get a virus and then spread it thru the network to everyone else. One once shut down the network for two days and we had a full blown tech department that was suppose to protect us from that kind of thing! Heads were rolling that day!!)
Just remember, never open any mysterious attachments, no matter who they are from!! Virus like to mail themselves to “friends and family”!!
And when downloading from the internet, research to see if the item you want to download is associated with a virus. Odds are, if it is, someone is already screaming about it.
Oh and get your virus softwares latest update. That may contain the fix.
Please visit this forum:
http://forum.malwareremoval.com/Read this thread: http://forum.malwareremoval.com/viewtopic.php?t=12
Follow instructions, and post your HijackThis log in the Malware Removal forum.
They will help you to remove whatever may be lurking on your system.
Spybot Search & Destroy is a good program. And so is anything Mozilla. Between them, I haven’t had any virus problems. I hope there’s no lasting damage, SilverArrow.
Kreller, thank you for the links. I tried the trojan scan, but it didn’t pick up anything.
Well, is here the additional sorted details of this stupid thing. After downloading Firefox and using it once, I turned off my computer (that was Friday night). I turned in on Saturday and tried to use Firefox and it wouldn’t open from my desktop or under “programs” under the START menu.
Since it had also infected my mom’s laptop (wireless network in the house) we called in the Geek Squad. Well $400 dollars later for two computers (no kidding!) apparently this nasty little bugger decided to re-route the Firefox to some root file. At least we can now use Firefox to do our on-line banking (we can’t really afford the Geek Squad, but identity theft would cost much more). I got this terrible thing through an e-mail e-card from BlueMountain.com. I fell for it thinking one of my friends who I was expecting to hear from sent it to me. The 2 dead give aways (in hindsight) was that it said it was from BlueMountain.com (not my friend’s e-mail, like most e-cards do) and it wanted me to download some “updates” for the Flash player (and conveniently provided the link).
It came out last week, so just keep your eyes peeled and save yourself from this trouble. I will probably need to sell some Windstones soon to pay my mom back, but at least the computer is back and running right. 😀 Oh well, live and learn!
Now that you have the computers working I would recommend adding Spybot and Ad-Aware. They are both free and may help prevent this from happening again in the future.
The Geek Squad is highly overrated, but is useful for the folks that have no other resources. If I had something that nasty on my machine I’d probably just have reimaged it. 😐
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comNambroth wrote:The Geek Squad is highly overrated, but is useful for the folks that have no other resources. If I had something that nasty on my machine I’d probably just have reimaged it. 😐
I would agree about the Geek Squad. They do ok work, but waaayy over priced. If we had them come out a couple of times it would cost the same as getting a new computer!
Reimaged? Like reformatting everything?
SilverArrow wrote:Nambroth wrote:The Geek Squad is highly overrated, but is useful for the folks that have no other resources. If I had something that nasty on my machine I’d probably just have reimaged it. 😐
I would agree about the Geek Squad. They do ok work, but waaayy over priced. If we had them come out a couple of times it would cost the same as getting a new computer!
Reimaged? Like reformatting everything?
Yeah- a clean wipe. It’s (generally) good for the computer to do once in a while too. I try to do mine every 2 years or so. It just means I gotta be really religious with my backups… this is always a good idea though, you never know when you’ll have some sort of failure after all. 😉
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.com
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