Is this Malware?

Question

I posted this in the new users forum, and they told me to tell my story here: A couple of weeks ago, I believe I had a virus on my laptop. There was a software pop up called Antivirus XP 2008.  They had a fake microsoft logo and there was no mention of microsoft on their web site.  I think I was able to get rid of the virus, but along with it came this blue screen message thing. After about 5 minutes of the laptop sitting idle, it will flash to a blue screen with a long message.  (each time this comes up it has a different error code) This screen toggles back and forth with the Microsoft windows xp startup black screen with the blue bar at the bottom.  If I hit escape, the screen will return back to normal.  Could this be a screensaver set up as a fake bluescreen? Can you escape out of a real blue screen? I tried to check the screen saver settings, but it doesn't appear that this Dell Latitude D610 computer has a screensaver setting anywhere. Where should I start? Any help I can get is greatly appreciated.

scottkammer · Answer

Thank you for replying. I don't seem to have that personalize menu when I right click on the desktop. In fact, I can't find the screensaver settings anywhere on the display menu.

RobinBredin · Answer

HI scottkammer, Right click on you desktop, choose personalize, choose screen saver, then have look at the dropdown list to see if its there.

RobinBredin · Answer

That personalize menu should also be in Control Panel.

RobinBredin · Answer

Delete

TheRealFireblad · Answer

Right click on you desktop, choose personalize, choose screen saver, then have look at the dropdown list to see if its there.

The 'Personalize' option is only available under Windows Vista. Robin is using XP.

@ Robin: You'll find the screensaver tab/settings when you choose the 'Display' menu option, after right-clicking on the desktop.

However... it sounds to me as if you've either still got a virus, or malware/spyware?

What anti virus software did you use to get rid of the virus you had the first time? And what anti virus (AV) and anti spyware software do you have installed at the moment.

As you probably know, there are a number of free AV and anti spyware programs available - if you don't already have them installed.

But another option to check for viruses, is to run one or more of the many online anti virus programs available - from the major players in the field - i.e. Eset and Kaspersky (etc).

Just Google for 'Online Virus Scanner', and look for the two I've just mentioned first (Eset/Kaspersky). Those are the two leading anti virus/internet security software developers just now.

Run their respective programs, to see if they can find anything?

But you'll also need to download/install an anti spyware program, if you don't have one (or more) installed already.

Spyware Terminator is a good 'real-time' program, which can not only scan your system for spyware... but it can be set to run at startup, so that it runs in the background at all times, keeping an eye on your system, and helping prevent spyware getting onto your system in the first place :emotion-55:

Ad-Aware is another obvious choice... and Spybot Search & Destroy is quite popular.

Finally... you may have heard of it before, but I recommend downloading/installing/running a program called CCleaner ASAP.

It's an invaluable program, which checks your system for junk files etc, and scans your registry for invalid entries etc.

It might be able to uncover the culprit causing you these problems?

But even if it doesn't, you'll probably be surprised how much junk it finds, and how much hard drive space you'll get back after deleting the junk!

Bugbatter · Answer

Scott, please post your MBAM log as well as a HijackThis log. Instructions are in your other thread as well as at the top of this forum in the 'HOW TO POST...' announcement.

Virus & Spyware

Delete

Was this post helpful?