Malicious popups
For several weeks now I've been getting unauthorized whole-window popups, some of them to trojan infested sites. A complete uninstall of Firefox and subsequent re-install of a newer version did not fix the problem and neither Avast, Malwarebytes nor Spybot S&D can find anything, but there's clearly something there.
All Replies (4)
When you did the uninstall-reinstall, did it wipe all your personal settings? If not, you could try a Reset. This is nondestructive: it duplicates certain key data from your active settings folder into a new one, bypassing some add-ons and custom settings. Your plugins will still be active, but could be disabled manually if you like.
More information in this article: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings.
If the new settings folder has the same problem, you can switch back if you like using Firefox's Profile Manager.
Does it make any difference?
Another scanner you could try is:
SUPERAntiSpyware : http://www.superantispyware.com/
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
- http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
- http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Microsoft Safety Scanner
- http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
- http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
Thank you for your advice. I've checked with all programs except the two Microsoft ones and while they find plenty of cookies, none of them have found the root of the malicious popups. I'm stumped.
I'll try the reset next. Wish me luck.
If you can't solve it then ask advice at a forum that specialize in malware removal.
- http://forums.majorgeeks.com/index.php - MajorGeeks Support Forums
- http://www.security-forums.com/index.php - WindowSecurity.com Security Forums
- http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums - Bleeping Computer Forums