ferkit

Twice over the past year, my routine scan with Malwarebytes was clean - and always is. ESET Smart Security scan - clean as well. However, the free version of AdAware picked up Win32 trojans - first was Win32 zugo (months ago) and yesterday Win32 Trojan agent. (Quarantined both times) If it's relevant - my system is Win XP SP 3; browsers: both Chrome and Firefox (with NoScript). I imagine I may still be infected. My first question is - how is it that Malwarebytes - which according to most is tops in the field - failed to detect this? Is it not really such a threat? Apart from keeping Malwarebytes updated, is there something else I should be doing prior to scan? Most important - assuming Win32 is a serious threat, how can I make sure I've fully removed it? Thanks!

All right, then - no action at this time. I'll be back if my non-action ends up biting me. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, LD Tate - your call has weight. Having read your instructions, I *am* apprehensive about the risk of 'breaking' something else in the course of fixing. In your experience, what's the risk-to-benefit ratio? The probability of something going wrong? And what sort of issues occur with that scenario? Thanks so much for your time here! Again - no rush.

Thanks for your response - here's the current status. AdAware Free quarantined Win32 Zugo. (It wasn't picked up by Malwarebytes.) I reset my browser homepages on Firefox and Chrome, and all seems well. But. While I never actually use Internet Explorer; I opened it to check. IE still seems infected by Startnow. Do you feel I still need to run ATF cleaner and Combofix? I'm a little leery of doing so ... having an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' point of view. OTOH - if you feel 'it's still broke', then I'll fix. Have a great Fourth of July weekend - no rush with this one.

When I opened Firefox today, I found myself ... hijacked? By Startnow.com, with Bing replacing Google as search engine. I first assumed I'd mistakenly signed up for this during an update (like that pesky Yahoo toolbar associated with Sun microsystems); I first uninstalled Startnow from Add/Remove programs, reset my homepage in Firefox options, and uninstalled the Startnow plug in. It seemed to remove the toolbar, but not the rest of it: No good. I use Avast as my security suite, with Malwarebytes; Malwarebytes deep scan run in safe mode brought up nothing. I plan to run an Avast complete scan in safe mode as well. If this is indeed malware, it's my first infection. What to do? My OS is Win XP, SP3. Chrome is my second browser (which I use more often than Firefox lately); no anomalies there. Yet. Thanks so much in advance for your help! -- Ferkit