PaulyJ
2009-08-16, 01:32
Hi all,
Well it was only the second ever time i have had any problems with any form of attack in about 8 yrs, so maybe i am quite lucky but this last one nearly had me wiping precious data, via a complete re-install, such was it's impotence causing symptoms.
I was surfing the web as normal, and Spybot kept asking me to allow registry changes, totally out of the blue so i declined them, until a spybot window with a greyed out "decline change" button appeared, i had no choice other than clicking the close window button on the top.
Anyway i knew i had a problem because a few weeks earlier i had seen the same process minus the greyed out button, whilst being attacked by an automatic, unknown by me, installation of a program called Microsoft Security Centre Pro. Which caused all other exe's to be deemed as infected and unable to be run.
So i rebooted to find a program called "Total Security" greeting me with the most urgent message splashed all over my desktop as a wallpaper, "Your computer is at risk bladi bah blah"
Assuming i could fix this as i had previously i headed for the Task Manager to kill the program, but unlike before it was dis-abled.
I don't have much technical knowledge of these things, i could not get online, and i could not run anything other than this ransomware, even if i was desperate enough to give into this attack and pay them i couldn't of because it would not let me run the app that connects me to the net. Bit of a own goal for them.
So i was about to re install Xp and i thought i would see if i could search for Total Security.exe, to my surprise i could run explorer and find i found the folder Total Security in AllUsers.Winnt and 3 files inside one an exe named something like 101747577.exe and i tried to delete it, but windows said i could not. I was able to delete the other 2, but they came straight back.
I rebooted and for some reason i cant fathom, Total Security was not running, i could use all my programs and i dl'd a reg fix for Task manager, and Dbam to get rid of the malware.
I have followed the procedures described in the "How did i get infected in the first place" thread but i also wanted to tell my specific story to see if anyone could help me from getting saddled with this nightmare again.
Plus i was surprised to find no reference for "Total Security" in reference to malware from a google search and just wanted to tell all how i was able to disable it.
Thx for reading
Well it was only the second ever time i have had any problems with any form of attack in about 8 yrs, so maybe i am quite lucky but this last one nearly had me wiping precious data, via a complete re-install, such was it's impotence causing symptoms.
I was surfing the web as normal, and Spybot kept asking me to allow registry changes, totally out of the blue so i declined them, until a spybot window with a greyed out "decline change" button appeared, i had no choice other than clicking the close window button on the top.
Anyway i knew i had a problem because a few weeks earlier i had seen the same process minus the greyed out button, whilst being attacked by an automatic, unknown by me, installation of a program called Microsoft Security Centre Pro. Which caused all other exe's to be deemed as infected and unable to be run.
So i rebooted to find a program called "Total Security" greeting me with the most urgent message splashed all over my desktop as a wallpaper, "Your computer is at risk bladi bah blah"
Assuming i could fix this as i had previously i headed for the Task Manager to kill the program, but unlike before it was dis-abled.
I don't have much technical knowledge of these things, i could not get online, and i could not run anything other than this ransomware, even if i was desperate enough to give into this attack and pay them i couldn't of because it would not let me run the app that connects me to the net. Bit of a own goal for them.
So i was about to re install Xp and i thought i would see if i could search for Total Security.exe, to my surprise i could run explorer and find i found the folder Total Security in AllUsers.Winnt and 3 files inside one an exe named something like 101747577.exe and i tried to delete it, but windows said i could not. I was able to delete the other 2, but they came straight back.
I rebooted and for some reason i cant fathom, Total Security was not running, i could use all my programs and i dl'd a reg fix for Task manager, and Dbam to get rid of the malware.
I have followed the procedures described in the "How did i get infected in the first place" thread but i also wanted to tell my specific story to see if anyone could help me from getting saddled with this nightmare again.
Plus i was surprised to find no reference for "Total Security" in reference to malware from a google search and just wanted to tell all how i was able to disable it.
Thx for reading