Paypal was hacked; Viruses found on laptop; Why can't I access PayPal website anymore?

First of all, check your hosts file for strange entries.

Secondly, send us a HijackThis log of your system. It can be downloaded from:

http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/hijackthis

Your host is possibly being redirected to a website that is now gone by the mailware on your system.  Try downloading Combofix.exe from Download.com or some well known site and follow instructions.  Make sure you run it from the desktop and not a folder and run it in safe mode if possible. It is likely you are being hacked still and should disconnect from the internet. Get combofix from another computer and load it to a flash drive.

Hello StephenSpeaks,

Any update on the issue?

I agree that you should scan with other AV software just to be safe like malwarebytes http://www.malwarebytes.org/.  

I would also remove symantec and try another realtime scanner.  These days I'm recommending Vipre.  They have a complete 30 day trial that you can download here http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Home-Home-Office/VIPRE/

You can also download security essentials from microsoft.  It's free.  You can run that at the same time as other AV software as long as you turn of it's realtime scanner and only use it to run manual or scheduled scans.  http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

One suggestion I would also add is check IE - go to tools - internet options and look under connections.  Click on advanced and see if the Proxy Server box is checked.  If so uncheck it.  Combo fix, etc. often will not resolve that little aspect.

Another thing you can do in IE8 is reset ALL settings back to default.  Click tools, Internet Options, Advanced Tab, then press reset, check delete personal settings, then press reset again.  This will set IE back to it's factory default settings.  You should do this to make sure there isn't some kind of addon that was installed by the virus.

I would also try another browser like Firefox to see if you can get to paypal.com.  The opendns suggestion was also good.

Why doesn't the author log in and award points or add comment.  Very annoying.

What is EE's policy on this?

Maybe we should all be awarded points or something.

I think the points should be split, there were lots of good answers here.  There's been too many abandoned questions lately and I feel like i'm wasting time answering them.

I concur

Here is my thought on this:

How to Handle Abandoned Questions:

For each participant who give viable answers and/or attempts at resolving the reported issue:

Total Points of Question

Participants answers/attempts must show some viable attempt to assist in resolving and can not simply be a "duplicated" or "parroted" response.

Question Poser:

1.  Email Notification that Question was abandoned and said points awarded.
2.  For the 1st Offense - take 50% of what was given for the abandoned question from the Posters account.
3.  2nd Offense - Do#1 but take 100% of the Points from the Poster.   Make it possible for the Poster have negative point values.

BIG IF here:

IF the Poster is on their second offense [showing a potential habitual issue]; they will be unable to access their account for X # of weeks using the following calculation:  # PTS X # of Viable Participants Awarded PTS / # of Viable Participants Awarded PTS

or

A x B / B = # of weeks unable to access the account.

Thoughts?

Minor adjustment to the equation:

(A x B / B) / 52 = total number of weeks.

Example:

((125 x 5)/5) / 52 = 2.4 weeks.

Sounds good, you should post that in the EE suggestions area.

Post ID's: http:#a24668810 & http:#a27599346 should fall under #3.

Both answers provide a methodical way to ensure that any pc infection is removed and then protected from further infection.  All other posts concur with the conclusions provided in these two posts.

"Post ID's: 24668810 & 27599346 should fall under #3."

Agreed

The solution seems to be good, but I eventually decided to simply reformat my machine to solve the problem.