Infected with Adware.SearchEngineHiJack

[btaki]

Hi,

I'm using MBAM premium, and i keep getting infected with Adware.SearchEngineHiJack, I quarantine and delete with MBAM but it comes back when I open Chrome again. I cleared all the extension out of Chrome, reinstalled windows + MBAM premium on a new hard drive then installed chrome and signed in to my google account, nothing was detected until I ran a scan.

Addition.txt FRST.txt Chrome Spyware.txt

[Maurice Naggar]

Hi,      
My name is Maurice. I will be helping and guiding you, going forward on this case.
Let me know what first name you prefer to go by.

Please follow my directions as we go along.  Please do not do any changes on your own without first checking with me. 
  
Please only just attach   all report files, etc  that I ask for as we go along.
 

Lets just start out with these starters.

[   1   ]

Use Chrome browser   to go to https://www.google.com/settings/chrome/sync and sign into your account.
Scroll down until you see the "reset sync" button and click on the button
At the prompt click on "Ok".

We need for the SYNC option to be Off

[   2   ]

for Chrome, while Chrome is running:
Press & hold SHIFT+CTRL+Del keys  on keyboard to get menu for clearing browsing data:

Check mark the line  "Browsing history"

Check mark the line "Download history"

Check mark the lined "Cached images and files"
and press Clear Data button  ( in blue )

[   3   ]

After that, make real sure that Chrome is "NOT" set to reload the pages from the last session

Go into the settings menu of Chrome by first clicking  the control icon of Chrome on upper right of the adress bar

Then look deeper in SETTINGS

 

Make real sure it is "NOT" set to "continue where you left off"

.

[   4   ]

See this article on our Malwarebytes Blog
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/technology/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused/

 

You want to disable the ability of each web browser on this machine from being able to allow "push ads". That means Chrome, Firefox, or Edge browser (on Windows 10), or on Opera.

Scroll down to the tips section "How do I disable them".

[   5   ]

I suggest you install the Malwarebytes Browser guard for Chrome.

To get & install the Malwarebytes Browser Guard extension for Chrome,

 

Open this link in your Chrome   browser: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/malwarebytes/ihcjicgdanjaechkgeegckofjjedodee

 

Then proceed with the setup.

[btaki]

Hi Maurice,

I followed the steps outlined and it worked, I have rebooted several times and ran a scan without any trace of the adware. Do you have an idea what got rid of it?

 

[Maurice Naggar]

Hi.   Good morning.   I am glad to hear the good news.

Setting the Google Sync to off as part of cleaning process helps a very lot.   So does deleting the cache & history in the browser.

Let us do a follow up check  with Malwarebytes Adwcleaner.

I  would suggest to download, Save, and then run Malwarebytes ADWCLEANER.

Please close Chrome and all other open web browsers after you have saved the Adwcleaner and before you start Adwcleaner scan.

Adwcleaner  detects factory Preinstalled applications too!

 

Please download  Malwarebytes AdwCleaner  https://downloads.malwarebytes.com/file/adwcleaner
 

Be sure to Save the file first, to your system.  Saving to the Downloads folder should be the default on your system.

 

Go to the folder where you saved Adwcleaner. Double click Adwcleaner  to start it.

At the prompt for license agreement, review and then click on I agree.

 

You will then see a main screen for Adwcleaner. ( if you do not see it right away, minimized the other open windows, so you can see Adwcleaner).

Then click on Dashboard button.

Click the blue button "Scan Now".

 

allow it a few minutes to finish the Scan.   Let it remove what it finds.

NOTE:  When it comes to the section "

Pre-installed applications

 

You can skip that.

Please find and send the Adwcleaner "C" clean report.

In Adwcleaner, click the "Reports" button.  Look at the list of reports for the latest date & type "Clean".

Double Click that line & it will open in Notepad.   Save the file to your system and then Attach that with your reply.

 

That C clean report will be the one with the most recent Date and time at folder  C:\AdwCleaner\Logs

Thanks.  Keep me advised.

 

[btaki]

Maurice,

I did not find the Reports button you mentioned, I found a Log Files tab. I attached the file from Adwcleaner's  directory.

AdwCleaner[S01].txt

[Maurice Naggar]

Thank you.   The Adwcleaner result is perfectly good.

Is there something else you need help with ?

[btaki]

I'm wondering if I turn sync on in Chrome and get infected again how I can clean it from the synched data.

[Maurice Naggar]

You may if you wish, turn Sync back on.   Just make it a practice to Delete the browser Cache on some regular basis.

If you have more than one Windows pc that also uses Chrome,  be sure that too has the Malwarebytes Browser Guard.

[btaki]

Perfect!

Thanks for helping me out. 

 

[Maurice Naggar]

Glad we could help.

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