Hello,
I'm very computer proficient and a virus that was attached to a fake EXE file I downloaded has severely messed up my computer. I ran the standard soiree of programs to get rid of malware:
MBAM - it detects multiple viruses and i would quarantine then delete each one, only for it to reappear again during a new scan (usually found in the System32/drivers folder)
Adwcleaner - it runs and detected 50 or so threats the first time, now each time I run it it will detect one threat in the Local app data folder (%appdata%\IPNinja\exitnode\exitnode.vbs)
Hitman Pro - I can't install this! says access denied
JRT - cannot run, access denied
Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit BETA - it again says the disk is encrypted or otherwise access denied
It is clear to me I have a rootkit installed that is preventing any sort of anti-malware programs from running. It is disabling the ability to install EXE files or otherwise run EXE files from multiple types of software. Furthermore, I have tried running system restore (it does not start), creating a system image of this disk (does not run, says error accessing the C: drive; fyi I'm trying to run a system image so that I can restore a 3 month old system image but still be able to look into what I currently have in terms of all my application settings / new apps etc.) and windows defender scan shows up nothing. I've noticed I had 90GB of free space before this virus behavior (from installing that rogue EXE file that contained it), and now my free space is down to 45GB all of a sudden.
Before I ran the initial run of Adwcleaner and MBAM, Microsoft Edge and Chrome were completely crapped out. I noticed the ipv4 settings in both my ethernet and wifi adapters (i have them both connected all the time) were set to rogue addresses. I changed the ipv4 back to Google DNS defaults (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and after using MBAM/Adwcleaner the first time and reinstalling CHrome, now internet works on chrome but Edge seems completely messed up. Nothing loads on edge no matter what.
I'm a bit confused right now on what I can possibly do to fix my computer. I see three alternatives:
Wipe my hard drive, resinstall windows 10, then restore from a system image a Win10 image I created 3 months ago that is missing a lot of my data and settings. This is not ideal but I'm hoping I can make this work as long as windows 10 doesn't crap out on me
I'd like to make a system image of my current config (with virus) before I wipe this drive, since I have so much sensitive data and I can't really collect what I will miss if I wipe it with my 3 month old system image.
Find a way to get rid of the rootkits so i can install Hitman Pro, JRT, Malwarebytes Anti-rootkit and eventually figure out a way to get all the trojan backdoors, rootkits and other PUPs off my computer.
If system image fails me and I can't get rid of this malicious virus, I may need to start from scratch :((
Any help here is much greatly appreciated. I am truly stuck - and I'm afraid I have exposed my machine to logging into chrome with certain passwords that I wouldn't want any backdoor virus capturing. Any advice on how to proceed (turn off all internet connections? leave computer off until ready to troubleshoot?) is much appreciated.
