I spent a huge portion of the last two days dealing with spyware issues on our two computers. Yes, on both of them. Ack! This is stuff The Hubs usually takes care of! I. am. clueless.
It started with the laptop. I did my best, initiating “full scans” and following prompts to “remove” the harmful worm/trojan/malware, like I had any idea of what I was doing. Yes, we have firewalls installed, and antivirus software, and don’t ask me what else because I just work here…
Impending Doom of Death
The Hubs and I exchanged some emails with him trying to give me tips on what to do next, but this only worked so long until that pesky time difference got in the way, him being in Kyrgyzstan and all… And nothing was working. Every time it said a purge was successful and a reboot was necessary to finish the job I’d go back to find the Impending Doom of Death warning back on the screen.
I use the laptop almost exclusively. At one point during my unsuccessful attempts to purge the virus/worm/trojan (what is the difference, anyway?) I took a break and got on the desktop to change several passwords of sensitive sites I log onto regularly. (That’s what these viruses/worms/trojans do, right? Steal your information and suck you dry?)
But what was this? It can’t be! Impending Doom of Death YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED! Ack! How did this get on the desktop computer, too? All I could think was, “Now I’m really screwed”. My whole life is on the computer.
I Panicked
… and bought another internet security package. Right there on the spot. $50. I didn’t care. It still didn’t work.
Have you ever knee-jerked financially? Just thought, “Surely if I throw some money at the problem it’ll make it go away…” ?
Really, My Whole Life Is on the Computer
I was starting to think it was a sign from God that I should stop blogging. Really, as a “hobby” it’s quite the time-sucker, right? But it’s not just the blogging: I do all of our finances on the computer; Conner does his homework; not to mention their dad is deployed and we kind of rely on the computer to communicate with him. All of this goes through your head in a nanosecond, you know?
Call For Help
I’m really tired of replaying this so I’ll just cut to the chase. The problem ended up being in this blog. Spyware. In this blog. Big-bad ju-ju embedding itself in my php files (whatever those are) and spreading into the rest of the computer whenever I so much as thought about signing onto this site. Thank you Erin for recommending I contact Lisa (who helped me set up this site) who responded promptly to my email (Subject line: “Help!”) and had the problem figured out and fixed in, like, five minutes.
Who are these people?
I don’t know. But I’m sure glad I know one of them.
Financial Knee Jerks
Honestly, if it weren’t for Dave Ramsey, we’d probably already have a new desktop. Not that a new computer would have ultimately prevented this particular problem, but it’s on my mind because our desktop is ancient (by computer standards) and this is by far the longest we’ve gone without replacing it. We’re on a mission right now. Normally, though? No sooner would we start experiencing glitches than The Hubs would start looking around for our next computer. He has smoothed out more wrinkles on this one than I can count just to keep it going as long as it has. I really feared this spyware was going to finally mark its end. We are going to need to budget for a new computer, soon. But not until we’re done with this snowball, further financial knee jerks notwithstanding. This laptop I work on ain’t no Spring chicken, either…
It’s only been a few hours since Lisa came to my rescue. What with her purging my php files (whatever those are) and the numerous layers of virus protection we now have on our computers double-dipping into firewall duty, the worms/viruses/trojans appear to have finally packed up and gone for good. We’ll see. I guess if I disappear for awhile, you’ll know I was wrong.
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I feel for you, I so know where you’re coming from. Hubby takes care of those things too, I am also clueless! In case you pay an arm & leg for spy ware protection, we use these free downloads
http://www.soft82.com/download/Windows/Spy_Hunter_Spyware_Remover
http://www.superantispyware.com/?tag=GOOGLE-SUPERANTISPYWARE
Hope it helps.
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Here is the secret with this particular virus. The window that pops up warning you your computer is infected IS the malware! So never, never click on anything in that window that says “Clean it now” or anything except the X in the corner to close it. Clicking on anything else actually installs the malware on your computer and from that point on you are hijacked until you a) give your credit card number to pay them to hijack you or b) get the thing off your computer. If you see something pop up with a warning like that, CLOSE IT IMMEDIATELY then go to your program menu and run a full scan using the software you purchased. This can be extremely deceiving because some of the pop ups may say Norton or McAfee found something and look like they ARE the software you purchased. But they are still messing with you. Close the window and run your software from the program menu.
This virus is a TOTAL pain to clean up. My son fell for it and I ended up reformatting the drive after trying several different spyware products to clean it off. It was prolific a few months ago so perhaps it is spreading again. I would love to know the .php file trick if I ever get another call from someone who has it!
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Marilyn Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Jolyn, this is exactly what my virus was like! My computer tech person is installing Microsoft Security Essentials and should have my computer up and running by tomorrow. Like you, my whole life is on my computer!
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Budgets are the New Black Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Marilyn, so you clicked on a pop-up warning thing? I am still having problems with my computers, but this website is fine. My website-guru contact Lisa is monitoring it for me for a bit to make sure it stays that way. I may be taking in my computers to get wiped, if these twice-daily full scans don’t start doing the trick. We have Windows Defense and Symantec anti-virus, and all the bells and whistles the latter comes with. Here’s to hoping…
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Budgets are the New Black Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
I meant, Windows Defender.
Marilyn Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Yes, that’s what happened. This official-looking pop-up window appeared and I (stupidly!) clicked on it rather than x-ing out of it. Thankfully, we have a great computer technician at our school who is paid to fix my mistakes! I’m glad to hear your blog is fine – hope you get your computers completely fixed asap!
Now I know where the virus on my laptop came from! It started over the weekend and got worse and worse. When I took it in to our school’s computer technician she said I had one of the worse viruses a computer can get! I am currently using a loaner while she tries to fix mine.
On an unrelated note (unrelated to viruses, but NOT unrelated to this blog I guess!) my 14 year-old son is in his room acting like a baby because I won’t buy him a new pair of tennis shoes he just has to have. Apparently if I don’t order them TONIGHT, there won’t be ANY of the kind he wants left in stock. He CERTAINLY can’t wait until our next paycheck, and tried to argue with me that if I just put it on my credit card by the time the bill came I would have my next paycheck! (I’ve been trying to explain that we are not “charging” in the true sense of the word – we only use the credit card if we can turn right around and pay it off.) Anyway, delayed gratification is not his forte, and I’m irritated that he does not share our goal of getting debt free asap! Ha! Thanks for letting me vent!!!
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jolyn Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Marilyn,
I am so sorry about the virus! Did she mention what kind it was?
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Marilyn Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
No problem – it happens! See my above reply to Cherilyn’s post.
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Girl…..I feel ya. Go check out my blog for my computer woes.
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I was on your website yesterday and my laptop crashed while I was trying to get it to work. When I finally got it back up it said that my computer was infected. Hubby (my personal computer geek) had to wipe the whole thing and reinstall programs last night. It’s almost done, so I’m borrowing his desktop. I wonder if anyone else had problems?
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jolyn Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Oh. My Gosh. I am so sorry if that came from my blog. I just don’t know but it’s very likely; I thought it was only when I signed onto wordpress/my dashboard when it gave me a problem… I just say again I am so sorry to you and anyone else that may have happened to! I did get it fixed and I’m suspecting what caused it and took measures to keep it from ever happening again.
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jaime Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 7:07 am
Don’t be sorry, it happens! I was just letting you know you aren’t the only one.
I hope you are all set on your end now.
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When that happened to your Dad’s ( the 10 yr.old one, not his laptop) we took it in to McPherson Business Machines (after calling Cheri or course) and for less than $100 they cleaned it all up. So even if you don’t have a Lisa, a new computer isn’t your only option.
But it is a big pain-in-the-neck.
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I hate hackers
, cause us all so much time wasted…. Luckily I have an apple mac so there is little chance of me getting 99% of the trojans and viruses that go around…. As for my websites, I have around 30-40 and anyone of those could get attacked 
so I have to be on the lookout.
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