Author Topic: Hijacked! (Read 1091 times)

jon w · « **on:** February 23, 2005, 15:54 »

Help desperately required. I can't even get into my home PC at the moment. My homepage was recently hijacked and a list of pornographic-sounding titles appeared in my Favourites list. Now, when I start it up, I get a window which reads: 'the EREE.EXE file is linked to missing export SHELL32.DLL: StrStrlA'. This lingers for a long time before another window opens, which reads: 'Thank you for being on our website'. The more I try to click these windows to close them, the more windows open, most of them being pop-ups advertising anti-spyware software. This is even happening when I'm not looking at the internet. If I do manage to struggle through as far as running Internet Explorer, the homepage appears for a short time before crashing. I've run Spybot several times, but to no avail. The computer is running Windows ME, and I have a broadband internet connection. I can't run System Restore because I'd disabled it after a virus problem. Does anybody have any suggestions? (Please keep them as simple as possible, I'm no techie!)

twiggy · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2005, 16:13 »

sounds like you have what I had forgot what it was called now :roll: had sumit like cph at the start of it. When i did a search on google very little was known about it only that it hijackes your homepage and gives you laods of pop-ups and basically slows your computer down. What is also known is that spybot, adware, mcafee, zonealarm, norton or anything else you try will not find it or pick it up. I had to whipe both my computers clean and start again, also my next computer also picked it up real nasty thing to get if thats wat u have got?

joudi · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2005, 16:14 »

Hi Jon and

As a start just a small question:

Have you updated "Spybot" before running it?

Second thing: Here's another program that will find things which Spybot couldn't find, (It's free):

http://www.download.com/3000-8022-10045910.html

If that doesn't work, one techie will be here soon.

Sandra · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2005, 16:16 »

Ok Jon, do you know how to get into safe mode ?
Its entered by repeatedly pressing F8 as you restart your pc if you dont know.
Once you are in safe mode check that your system restore is still turned off and run your scans of spybot and any other ad removal programs and an AV scan.
Then restart as normal and see if its cured your problem.
If it hasnt then let us know and we can try another approach

jon w · « **Reply #4 on:** February 24, 2005, 11:38 »

Right, thanks for your prompt replies. As I'm away from home at the moment I shan't be able to try any of your suggestions until Monday Feb 28, so please check back next week! Joudi, Spybot was updated the day before my PC crashed. I'll try the free download as soon as I get home. Sandra, I figured it would be a good idea to try working in Safe Mode. Thanks for the suggestion; I'll try that too on Monday. Thanks folks.

jon w · « **Reply #5 on:** March 04, 2005, 16:20 »

Sorry guys, still stuck away from home due to work commitments. Will post re: your suggestions next week!

Sandra · « **Reply #6 on:** March 04, 2005, 16:25 »

No worries Jon, hope you get it sorted