sorry, just saw the refernce to Firefox...my bad
Main Topics
Browse All TopicsThis has completely defeated me, and I am _not_ a novice at this. I got a strain of Vundo from a website and successfully removed it as I've done many many times before. This time however the strain has left a redirect issue with links in Google searches. The redirects go to sites like Shopica.com and Toseeka.com. The computer in question is XP Pro SP3 fully patched. System restore is off. The browser is Firefox; I do not use IE. I've run the following programs with absolutely no success:
- Avast, full scan, found nothing
- AVG, full scan, found nothing
- HijackThis, all entries are _perfect_, you'll have to take my word that I know what I'm looking at
- Spybot, found nothing but cookies, removed and rescanned and got a clean bill of health
- Malwarebytes, quick and full scans both found nothing
- SuperAntiSpyware, found many cookie files, all removed, rescanned and found nothing
- VundoFix, found 0 files
- Smitfraudfix ran with no findings
- Fixwareout.exe ran with no abnormal changes
All applications listed above are their most recent versions with updated signatures. I've also tried "ipconfig /flushdns" to no avail. The hosts file is clean. There is nothing in the DNS area of the TCP/IP properties. There are no abnormal files in the system32 directory (and even if there were, Hijackthis would have pointed at calls to them).
As you can see that's fairly thorough IMO, but the redirects keep occurring. Can someone recommend anything that I may have missed? I'm eager to learn yet another trick to help get rid of this trojan when it pops up. Thanks everyone,
James
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
is the DNS services local, or upstream via an ISP?
if local and you have access to the DNS server you could try your flush locally again and clear DNS cache on the server
being in an IE corporate envioment, I am not familiar enough with Firefox as to wether there is a factory default reset function, like in IE
if you can download this application and run it. It should take care of the malware.
http://www.malwarebytes.or
HijackThis is only a tool used to show us what's in certain registry locations. There are malware out there that won't show up in HijackThis.
Since this has been spreading around a lot, give this a try. In the c:\windows\system32\ folder, look for a file called wdmaud.sys (make sure it's not wdmaud.drv which is a legitimate file in that directory). Delete that file if found. It should fix the redirect issues.
You should also run ComboFix so it can be looked at as well.
Go to http://www.bleepingcompute
Are you able to perform an OS re-install? In my experience with malware this has corrected any issue i've had.
If you move the files you want to keep to a none os created folder and don't perform a format you can save the files and correct the problem. I would backup the files to a dvd or external hdd first, if possible.
Try viper from www.sunbeltsoftware.com I've had a lot of luck with that.
greyknight, I know about about ComboFix but didn't try it here. It's hard to imagine ComboFix correcting something that Malwarebytes, VundoFix, and Fixwareout couldn't but I'm happy to give it a try tomorrow. I'll also run sfc as well, I didn't try that today. Last, I'll test IE tomorrow for redirects and install Google Chrome to see if it is affected. I'll post the results here in the AM.
mudbuggle, I'm using this as an opportunity to learn more about Vundo and don't intend to do a re-install.
I've seen other people online in various forums - especially in late 2008 - with the same problem that I have, where _nothing_ seems to solve the issue. I'd like to use this as an opportunity to learn where redirects like this hide.
James
ComboFix seems to be updated to take care of that fake wdmaud.sys file as well, so if that was the cause of the redirects, it should fix it for you.
The latest redirect infection that I have seen is related to that wdmaud.sys file. So if Malwarebytes' and others didn't find much, there is a high probability that you have been infected by this file.
If this is caused by vundo then combofix is the perfect fix for it.
But since this is Firefox it could be something else since MalwareBytes didn't detect anything.
Before the redirect site load, does goougly.com or czfsearch omes up?
If you use the back button and then click on the exact same search result for a second time, are you taken to the right location without being redirected?
If so, then GooredFix.exe should fix it.
Please double-click GooredFix.exe on your Desktop to run it.
Select "2. Fix Goored" by typing 2 and pressing Enter.
Make sure all instances of Firefox are closed at this point.
Type y at the prompt and press Enter again.
A log will open, please post the contents of that log in your next reply (it can also be found on your desktop, called GooredLog.txt).
Note: If you receive a message saying that GooredFix needs your system to be restarted, please close all applications and reboot your system. Please also allow any registry changes that may be prompted by any of your security programs.
And yes, wdmaud.sys MalwareBytes also doesn't detect yet, all you have to do to stop the redirect is delete the wdmaud.sys file in system32 folder as greyknight17 had suggested.
C:\Windows\syste
C:\Windows\system32\
rpggamergirl you are a tremendous asset to this site and my new personal hero! Your suggestion to use GooredFix.exe found and solved my issue by locating the registry entry and the directory that the javascript redirect was in. This is a monumental relief but it leaves me with a question that you might know the answer to. The redirect was on this machine for a few days. What, if anything, is the consequence of that? Did I just suffer ad redirects or should I be worried that (as an example) my username and password to *this* site were compromised. The redirect NEVER carried me to another site that I might confuse as my own bank or financial institution and was wholly limited to just redirecting search links in Google.
I'm reading through a few forums for answers right now (notably a few discussions concerning Avast) but any help with understanding that YOU might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated.
No, that was just the redirects you suffered from. It wasn't like one of those generic PWS trojans that steal personal infos or trojans that record keystrokes etc.
Combofix and MalwareBytes already detect and remove other search engine redirects like the "sysaudio.sys and wdmaud.sys" but not this one yet.
It's also a good idea to fully scan the system for viruses to make sure that the system is free from other nasties that may be present as well. An online Kaspersky scan and MalwareBytes to check for any rogues would be good.
No antivirus detects this infection, most antivirus doesn't even detect/remove rogues apps like Antivirus 2009 etc.
I'm using the free Avast, it's a good free antivirus, light and better than AVG I think as I don't have any problems with it so far(nearly 2 years).
Thanks for the compliments and kind words, so nice of you, :)
I very much appreciate it.
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: fredbfruglePosted on 2009-01-07 at 17:57:05ID: 23321533
you could try (if you haven't already) in the TOOLS section under Internet options , go to the advanced tab and RESET internet explorer back to defaults, this trick has helped me a few times
-Jim