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annasFlag for United States of America

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My Computer has been Hijacked

I made the mistake of letting some popups through on a website I visited and now My computer has been hijacked by something calling itself "Mysearch" and has placed a toolbar on IE 6 that I can't get rid of. My computer has slowed to a crawl. I could not type this on it and had to go to another computer. There are several "new" icons on my desktop. One says "Spyware" removal" and takes me to a website completed unrelated to spyware. There are several programs that have installed themselves in my program files directory.

Please how do I get out of this mess!
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FlamingSword

You should probably rebuild the box to be sure.  If you have AV like symantec, run its latest pattern and see if it is something you can undo.  Most people here try to fix by using spyware removal tools, first spybot, then adaware, then spybot, then adaware,  and that may wash your machine clean and make you more aware.

One thing for sure, you were hacked by running code from a malicious website that sponsors but privacy invasion and user manipulation, such as Verisign.

The way they did it was to exploit a known vulnerability to Internet explorer. Because --- you had not patched that vulnerability. How many other vulnerabilities have exploited you?

That is why I think for peace of mind, you migh best just go reload the system from scratch, and then continue, installing each and every patch and service pack and rollup to eliminate all the vulnerabilities and exploits available, an not until then let the machine reconnect to the network.
Answer: WindowsUpdate ...................  SpyBot
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sunray_2003
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Install a good firewall like zonealarm

have your virus updates and check for virus

install trojan remover and check for trojans

Sunray
Thanks

Sunray
Good job.
But that is more about the after effects, like running A/V to see what happened while the barn door open, and finding Blaster. I like to also shut doors once in awhile. For example, I was just reading this in another window:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-041.asp

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker could host a malicious Web Site designed to exploit this vulnerability. If an attacker then persuaded a user to visit that site an ActiveX control could be installed and executed on the user’s system. Alternatively, an attacker could create a specially formed HTML e-mail and send it to the user. If the user viewed the HTML e-mail an unauthorized ActiveX control could be installed and executed on the user’s system. In both scenarios the vulnerability in Authenticode could allow an unauthorized ActiveX control to be installed and executed on the user’s system, with the same permissions as the user, without prompting the user for approval.