Jon Tydda
Jon.Tydda at alcontrol.co.uk
Thu May 5 11:01:00 CDT 2005
I haven't seen anything exactly like that per se, but I have had some trouble with IE (who hasn't?) before. If you go to www.microsoft.com/downloads you can download the administrator installer for Internet Explorer 6 SP1, which you can run from a memory stick or a cd or something. Reinstall it from scratch, it should let you do that. You can install the latest version of the free version of zonealarm without any problems - if her subscription has run out then she has out of date protection, and my reasoning would be that a slightly downgraded up to date firewall is better than a 2 year old one with bells and whistles on. I'd also run a Panda online scan, and download McAfee Stinger and let that run, just to be on the safe side too. Oh, and speaking of Belarc, I installed that last week, and the next time I ran my spyware checkers, it was full of back office things... I don't remember visiting any spurious websites or installing anything else, and I'm surprised that a security product would install something that's likely to be flagged as spyware without telling you... Sorry, meant to post this hours ago, but someone went and broke a pc... users! :-) Jon -----Original Message----- From: Steve Erbach [mailto:erbachs at gmail.com] Sent: 05 May 2005 14:55 To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: [dba-Tech] Compromised Internet Explorer? Dear Group, I'm working on a PC that belongs to my wife's best friend. I've gone through all the standard routines: Trend Micro Housecall on-line virus check, Windows System File Checker, update to Windows XP SP2, download and install Windows Anti-Spyware Beta, Gibson Research SpinRite 6, update Ad-Aware SE and run it, and even repair the Windows XP installation. My only concerns with this system are: 1) that Norton Anti-Virus 2005 doesn't start properly and I don't have the lady's installation CD; 2) that the ZoneAlarm Pro subscription expired almost two years ago; and 3) that the Windows Update site doesn't work. Regarding #3, When I get to the page that says that it checks for the latest version of the Windows Update software, there is a flurry of "activity" in that the progress bar in IE 6 goes all the way to 100%...but the "checking for latest version" screen doesn't go away. My suspicion is that IE itself is compromised. I used an XP SP2 upgrade CD that I have, hoping that it would take care of the problem. But after I ran Belarc Advisor and saw that a good dozen of the Windows security updates had NOT been installed, I went to the individual Microsoft KB articles on the upgrades and clicked on the links to get the security update...and each time I was directed to the Windows Update page where it doesn't go past the "Checking for the latest version of the Windows Update software..." stage. For what it's worth, this copy of IE is "branded" with the original ISP that the lady signed up with, ComCast. I see that logo in the upper right-hand corner of the IE window instead of the Windows logo. Something is stopping this PC from being updated in the normal way. I have also set the automatic updates option, but when I open the Security Center, it shows that the automatic updates option has not been configured. If I click on 'Turn on automatic updates,' I see this: "We're sorry. The Security Center could not change your Automatic Updates settings. To try changing these settings yourself, go to System in Control Panel. On the Automatic Updates tab, select Automatic (recommended), and then click OK." Needless, to say, that's how I tried to change the setting. If I go to System and look at the Automatic Updates tab, first of all it takes FOREVER for the Automatic Updates tab to actually show its information. Last night I waited it out. Several minutes went by and then I saw the Update information. It was set to Automatic Updates, but I wanted to change the time that it would check for updates. So I changed it to 11:00pm and clicked Apply. I had to wait another interminable time before I could click OK. We're talking 20 minutes or so in total for those two simple acts: click the Automatic Updates tab and Apply the new setting. Clearly something is compromised. If it's Internet Explorer then, what? Do I have to re-install Windows from scratch? I would recommend doing that to this lady since the drive is formatted as FAT32, not NTFS....but, like, I've spent way too much time on this already. Anybody ever see anything like I've described? -- Regards, Steve Erbach Scientific Marketing Neenah, WI www.swerbach.com Security Page: www.swerbach.com/security _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com The information in this e-mail is confidential and may also be legally privileged. The contents are intended for recipient only and are subject to the legal notice available on request from : webmaster at alcontrol.co.uk ALcontrol Laboratories is a trading division of ALcontrol UK Limited. Registered Office: Templeborough House, Mill Close, Rotherham, S60 1BZ. Registered in England and Wales No 4057291