Spyware / Adware Horror Stories

[basstard]

Dark phoenix


One day I was doing some ordinary surfing on the Web, and though I'm not sure how, my computer suddenly became infected with a virus, or at least that's what an unknown antispyware program was telling me in some pop-ups. The next thing I knew, SpywareQuake was installing without my permission and told me I had to buy the program if I wanted to remove whatever virus was on my PC.

I became instantly suspicious of the program, so I did some searching and found that, indeed, SpywareQuake was a rogue antispyware program that tricks unsuspecting people into buying the software. Although I could still run my PC, I couldn't do much before I was overloaded with pop-ups that covered half the screen.

I tried using Ad-Aware, ZoneAlarm, and Windows Defender, but none of them helped (Ad-Aware even shut down when I tried to run a scan). I then found a program called XoftSpy that was supposed to remove all the variants of the rogue app. Luckily, it was a genuine program and found and removed about 20 spyware infections. Unfortunately, SpywareQuake wasn't one of them.

After doing more extensive research, I found a script that was designed specifically to remove the variants of SpywareQuake. After letting this script somehow attempt to remove the program (it took a long time), it finally finished off the rogue app...or did it?

Only a couple of days ago, the program returned and had seemingly doubled in force. This time, it came in a variant called SpyAxe, and it immediately began to overflow my screen with pop-ups. I didn't watch the process, but after coming back a couple hours later, I found nearly 100 pop-ups on my screen, most of them ads to trick me into downloading even more rogue spyware apps (which they called "genuine products," of course). And there were quite a few tray icons constantly telling me to protect my system by downloading their software.

Being as experienced with this program's nature as I now was, I immediately tried to find a solution. I started with Ad-Aware, which once again shut down when I tried to scan. Then I tried XoftSpy, which fortunately found the app and removed it. But after a couple of hours, to my dismay, the app came back. So in the end, I used the script again, which, after a while, finally eliminated the program. I'm hoping that the program is gone for good. I'll definitely be a more cautious Web surfer from now on.


- Vancouver, Canada

[basstard]

Grounded by spyware


It's March 2004, and I'm happily surfing the net when I come across the free download of a game that ordinarily costs $20. Being the newbie surfer I am, I quickly click the download button, and a message comes up saying I have to enable ActiveX. Knowing nothing about the whole ActiveX concept, I click "yes," wanting to play the game as soon as possible. You can guess what happens next. Literally hundreds of pop-ups bombard the screen: pornography, casinos, fake spyware-removal sites, and a strange pop-up involving some guy making a face at me (as if I weren't already annoyed). I hurriedly begin closing the windows, but for every pop-up I close, three or four more appear. It's like a pop-up colony!

Literally panicking and hyperventilating, I slam the hard-reset button on my computer, hoping the pop-ups will go away if I reboot. Another bad mistake; when I see the now-rebooted desktop, I'm almost shocked into unconsciousness. My desktop is loaded with icons I don't even recognize, topped with a menacing black wallpaper across which is scrawled the message, "Your computer has been infected with spyware!" Ouch, ouch, and triple ouch. I try to download a few antispyware programs, but within seconds of going into the download pages, I'm redirected to some search site. I struggle for three days trying to solve this problem before my dad steps in, with no luck. The computer goes "poof" on his watch and refuses to start up again.

My dad takes the computer to the repair shop, a job that costs $75. Dad isn't too happy about that $75, which comes out of my allowance, and I get grounded for a week. By then I've learned my lesson. That $20 I thought I was saving was nothing compared to the time and money wasted by the end, and it really wasn't worth being grounded for a week.


- Suwanee, Georgia, U.S.A.

[basstard]

Trial and error


My husband is temporarily stationed on the island of Guam, and as most Guamanians know, there are many power outages here; sometimes more than three a week. Anyhow, my husband and I recently bought a new computer with Windows XP, and as soon as I got it online, the viruses started flooding in. I was told about different security programs, so I downloaded Ad-Aware, AVG Anti-Virus, and many others, which helped my computer run smoothly. But as a lot of people know, many security downloads are free trials, and when the free trial is over you have to pay for it. When it came to be that time when the free trials ended, I was (stupidly) too lazy to register or reinstall other protection.

At first, my computer wasn't affected, but last night after one of our famous power outages, I turned on my computer to find it near death. It took forever to load, programs would launch randomly, and the mouse wouldn't respond. Even when I pressed Control+Alt+Delete and the task manager popped up (along with 20 other task managers), I got a hung screen. Basically, my computer was frozen due to countless viruses and spyware and adware programs. In the end, all I could do was reinstall everything. I ended up losing all of the files, pictures, and programs--pretty much everything that was stored on my computer. Needless to say, when I finished reformatting my computer I immediately downloaded as much antispyware and antivirus protection as I could. Let this be a lesson learned for me and everyone else: keep your protection up-to-date! The good news is it was only my home computer, so I didn't lose anything too important.


- Ipan Talofofo, Guam

[basstard]

Spyware at the cybercafe

It was a fine day, so I went downtown to a cybercafe with my trusty flash disk. I was searching for software when I found iTunes and QuickTime on the server. I copied the files onto my handy-dandy flash disk and went on my way. The problem, I quickly learned, was that the server itself was infected with a Trojan horse and other spyware uglies. I was surprised to observe three unusual occurrences:

1. During installation, the executables delivered USR files that were almost the same size as the installers.

2. Installing the programs from the flash disk kicked off two processes: executable program files that used lots of memory and USR files that continued to run.

3. Norton AntiVirus would not start.

What could I do? I tried scanning with Trojan Remover, but it detected nothing. My last hope was Ad-Aware SE. It improved the molasses-slow speed that afflicted my laptop, but it hasn't totally resolved the problem. To be sure, I reinstalled my operating system and all my applications after formatting my contaminated hard drives.

I bought EasyRecovery Professional to retrieve the personal files that weren't stored on another partition, and it worked well. I still have one of the contaminated files on a CD as a souvenir of my misadventure.


- Algiers, Algeria

[basstard]

Game not over

Three years ago I built an awesome (and expensive) gaming computer. It rocked, but being ignorant about computer security, I had never heard of spyware and didn't even install an antivirus program. I was playing the latest games with the highest frame rates possible and saving money by downloading free or cheap games.

One day while searching for new games, I stumbled upon a site with a large number of pop-up windows. I didn't think anything about it at the time and snagged a cool-looking shooter and disconnected from my dial-up. Then a funny thing happened. Even though I was playing the game offline, I started getting pop-ups. After a while, a full-screen pop-up appeared claiming the government was spying on my PC. There was no exit button, so I hit Alt+F4 to put the pop-up away.

The next time I logged on, the pop-up windows had multiplied. IE was totally hijacked and I had no idea what was going on. When I closed IE, multiple programs were autoinstalling, Purity Scan among them. I attempted to manually remove the programs, but the sneaks had gone underground. IE was hijacked every time I launched it, and problems persisted even after I uninstalled the game that appeared to cause the problems. My computer was slow, but workable, so I left the problem alone and went about my business.

A few months later the pop-ups skyrocketed from single digits to 50 to 60, and I couldn't access a single search engine. My computer began reporting errors and shutting down. Everything slowed to a crawl. The desktop turned pink. I researched spyware from a friend's computer and bought McAfee, but it only caught some of the invaders. Finally, I took the PC to a computer repair shop, which used a combination of Ad-Aware, Spybot - Search & Destroy, and CWShredder to remove the majority of the 1,400 parasites and 36 virus infections mostly brought on by CoolWebSearch.

It looked as if everything was finally clear, but the more I surfed the Web, the more the problems returned. The spyware-removal programs repeatedly found the same infections, and I had to run an antispyware combination twice a day to keep my computer running smoothly. Frustrated, I downloaded Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor, and both programs found more Trojan horses, a keylogger, and a dialer.

As new updates are released for my security programs, I'm finding more and more pieces of this huge puzzle. My computer is gradually regaining its health and I've since become the spyware expert for my friends and family.


- Gainesville, Florida, U.S.A.

[basstard]

Rebel yell


We all have those days when we're multitasking and we screw up because we're trying to do more than one thing at a time. For me, it happened when I was watching Gods and Generals on TV at the same time I was watching videos via Firefox. I visited one Web site, looked back at the TV, then looked at the computer screen. The site I was visiting displayed a message saying I needed to install Vcodecs because my "Windows Media Player can not display all the active content on this page." Without thinking, I clicked the install button, and that's when the confederates marched up and threw open my front door with their rebel yell.

After the installation, Spy Falcon and a bogus security-center program popped up on my taskbar announcing I had a virus. I immediately selected the "Halt all Internet traffic" option on my PC-cillin Internet Security 2006. It's like what General Lee said: "I've lost my right arm, so it's time to beat the crap out of them with my left." Or something like that.

The cleaning process took me three days, as I found Spy Axe, Spy Falcon, Security Toolbar, Vcodecs, two Zlob Trojan horses, a CWS infection, Smitfraud, a desktop hijacker, and a home-page hijacker that wanted me to buy "secuirty programs" to remove the Maria worm it said I had.

PC-cillin failed to remove a single thing, which aggravated me because I could have gotten F-Secure or BitDefender 9. In the end it took (get ready for this, folks) AntiVir (an on-demand scanner I keep handy), Spybot - Search & Destroy, CCleaner, RemoveIT Pro XT - SE, Ad-Aware, KazaaBegone, Ewido, HijackThis, a Registry backup I had made the day before, SmitRem, CWShredder, CounterSpy, KillBox, McAfee AVERT Stinger, and a little help from my friends at Iamnotageek.com.

The real hero in this ordeal was the Registry backup I had made, because halfway through removing the infection I couldn't get back on to Windows in the normal version. Using the backup in Safe mode is what finally allowed me to get back in and slay the enemy.


- New Jersey, U.S.A.

[basstard]

Picture a p*rn attack


One day, I was trying to improve my site with some fancy-looking add-ons. As I looked around, I found a seemingly harmless link that had some "professional-grade Web site tools," and I took the bait. Huge mistake.

The second I clicked, my ZoneAlarm firewall detected several assaults directed at my computer, and Internet Explorer crashed after 60 or 70 gibberish windows popped up. I quickly engaged ZoneAlarm's Internet lock, but I was a second too late. As soon as I engaged the lock, it disengaged itself. Then, Norton AntiVirus went hysterical with 20 or 30 attacks. Norton was totally overwhelmed. So, I had to follow the exact directions Norton gave me to navigate to several system folders that had been infected with malware; I had to be exact, or I would risk damaging the OS and other vital parts.

Soon, I was able to safely engage ZoneAlarm's Internet lock. I then took out my trusty Ad-Aware SE and started a full system scan. Within the first couple of seconds, it identified more than 30 strains of spyware. I was able to remove most of them easily. After that, I did a system damage check. I was horrified to find my pictures folder was filled with pornography and links to p*rn Web sites. I had to delete my entire pictures folder because it was stuffed with something like 25 folders of p*rn. After all this, my computer was like a ravaged war zone. Almost all of my documents were destroyed, and I still get an occasional Trojan-horse attack, a ghost of this event. We have a wireless network here at home, but fortunately the other computer had three firewalls: Norton Personal Firewall, ZoneAlarm Pro, and the Windows firewall. To this day, I follow the belief that nothing in life is free.


- Snellville, Georgia, U.S.A.

[basstard]

In a fix


In my early Internet days, I used to think I was pretty savvy. I never opened an e-mail attachment if I didn't know the sender, always left my e-mail on the server instead of downloading my mail, and never went online without fully updating my firewall and antivirus programs. I used to tell people that a dialog box asking if you wanted to continue should be treated with suspicion, as yes is not always the right answer. You can see what's coming, right?

One day, I got a box asking me if I want to install "WinFixer." I clicked no, and instantly lost control of my mouse and keyboard. It was a button-swap trap, with no pointing to yes. Good thing I know about the power switch on the back of the tower, although I do not use it lightly.

This is where my paranoia came in handy. I have a CD of free antivirus programs, firewalls, and spyware removers that I burned for this kind of emergency. I update it with removal tools from places such as Symantec, Bit Defender, and others. This makes it easy to boot into Safe mode by holding down F8 (XP), then run the CD. It'll rip out the nasties in no time, as long as you keep it current. I also keep a floppy made with my old copy of Me for when Fdisk or Format C: are looking good and nothing else works.

I got the same message asking me to install "WinFixer" again not long after cleaning out my system. I clicked the x in the upper-right corner this time instead of a button in the dialog box. WinFixer was not installed, although I expect this loophole will be closed by the hackers soon. If WinFixer appears a third time, I plan to hit the hard-reset button, press F8 (XP), and run my emergency CD.

The moral of the story? I am the system admin of my PCs, and like the Linux guys say, never log in as Root or Administrator. The damage to my user account I can handle, but in root the baddies can see the master boot record (MBR)! Ouch.


- Lancashire, UK

[basstard]

Uninvited guest


I found the coolest screensaver one day while exploring the wonders of the Internet as a newbie surfer. It had a waterfall with birds and jungle sounds, and was completely 3D and free! I just had to have it. After it was installed, however, the program added a toolbar and some other icons I didn't immediately notice. Within a minute or so, the beautiful, animated scenery was partially blocked by big, bold text that advertised how to get the full version of the screensaver without the annoying nag screen.

Well, I decided to rid myself of the nuisance only to find it wasn't that simple. Even after uninstalling the screensaver and restarting my computer, the offending text was still popping up in my face. I used Spybot - Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware, but I couldn't clean it all.

A friend helped me isolate and remove all the separate program elements one by one, but I still received a Windows error message during reboot telling me it was attempting to load a program that wasn't there. The program it was trying to launch on start-up was the screensaver program, of course. Worst of all, there wasn't even a real filename for it--let's just say there was a bunch of scrawl marks and tiny squares where the filename should be. We finally fixed the automatic start-up problem using Msconfig and removed the same start-up entry. All in all, it took the better part of the day to regain control of my machine. After all of the hassle, I decided to purchase a reputable screensaver, which is likely what I should have done in the first place.


- Irving, TX, U.S.A.

[basstard]

All in the family


My brother bought a mostly brand new computer from our sister for $300. Before selling it to him, she had only used it for three months, and then let it sit in storage.

My sister is notorious for downloading useless programs from unprotected sites. For example, she once downloaded a fax machine program for a fax machine we didn't have. Well, my brother did the smart thing and used a free trial of Norton AntiVirus as soon as he booted up the computer. It's unbelievable it only took my sister three months to completely trash a brand new computer. Norton found 3,000 viruses, of which only 300 it could fix.

Of course my hard-headed brother thought Norton fixed all of them and was content to leave it alone. I decided I'd let him live his fantasy. Next time I'll be more forceful.

I downloaded Firefox for my brother's safe-surfing pleasure, but he didn't use it. This resulted in p*rn, p*rn, and more p*rn! He told me Internet Explorer was behaving strangely, bringing up pop-up windows featuring p*rn and casino sites, but when he tried to delete or close them, they only reappeared on his desktop and screen. The next day, the computer died (poof!), and I was blamed for its demise.

My brother said I had triggered a "sleeper virus" because he really has no clue what he's talking about. Well, he wound up paying $200 to have the computer professionally repaired, and everyone in the family thought I was a p*rn freak at the age of 16. Well, at least they did until I got so frustrated one day I told my entire family my brother got all those viruses from searching for pornography on a daily basis.


- Williamstown, NJ, U.S.A.