Re: Yellow triangle in taskbar malware - REMOVED


"Newbie" <nosp@xxxxx> wrote in message
news:dne6nv$sja$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>I run a Windows XP, SP2, home PC with IE 6.0 latest version browser. XP
>firewall is active
> as well as McAfee security centre - initially with antivirus installed
> only.
>
> I've been having a very annoying malware problem since December 7th. At

snip


Well I seem to have sorted it out in the end. First I entered into an
online chat with McAfee (Ace_Daniels I think the person called themselves)
which was frankly useless. I got taken through some steps to establish that
all my McAfee components are legit and up-to-date and that XP and IE are
up-to-date.

As a last resort I was told to run McAfee Antispyware 2 in safe mode but I
had already tried that and couldn't get it to run at all. Then I got a
prefab message saying sorry McAfee cannot actually help with detailed
Spyware removal for free, if you want real advice, contact the paid-for
support. (Fair enough at some level, but you either have the signatures to
remove something or not. I parted with £ 30.00 yesterday when I bought
their software and it clearly doesn't do what it claims it does.)

Following NG advice I then ran a free online Spy Sweeper scan on my PC
which, lo and behold, found some more, and different, nasties in the XP
registry (HKLM and HKU methinks) one was called security2k hijacker, the
other trojan-downloader-zlob.

I uninstalled McAfee Antispyware 2 (not sure that was truly necessary, but
by that stage I wanted it out of my life) and bought / downloaded Spy
Sweeper 4.5

Sweep took 13 minutes again, found the above two nasties, as well as some
more traces of the original Spyaxe problem and some more cookies from other
user identities.

It quarantined, then removed everything and hey presto - on reboot, no more
flashing yellow triangle in taskbar, and another sweep for adware, malware,
trojans etc. came out entirely clean.

I am just annoyed at myslef that I never bothered reading test reports what
the recommended spyware removers are. I bought the McAfee product in a
pricey retail outlet, on the 'strength' of the brand name, but this time,
the product was actually behind the competition when it comes to detection
and removal of some very annoying stuff.



.

Relevant Pages