Blank.gif Mysterious Malware?

[BigEplayer]

Hello, I need some expertise on something that I suspect is malware.

I noticed a strange gif on my desktop yesterday. The name of it was "blank" and without opening it up it looked like it was of a small 1x1 pink pixel. When I opened it up it looked like it didn't display anything, and I could see that the full name of it was "blank.gif". I did not download anything like this, and it just seemed to appear out of nowhere. I checked the gif on virus total and it said it was safe. I still deleted the file after that just incase. After deleting it, I ran both the Malwarebytes scan and the default windows scan and both did not detect any threats. Today, I got a notification I've never seen before on my computer informing me about free grammar software. My computer also informed me that a part of windows security was disabled (I enabled it after). Am I infected?

[Maurice Naggar]

Hi. This is just an initial query .  Does this Windows have Avira antivirus program ?

Or any other non-Microsoft antivirus ?

[BigEplayer]

2 minutes ago, Maurice Naggar said:

Hi. This is just an initial query .  Does this Windows have Avira antivirus program ?

Or any other non-Microsoft antivirus ?

There is no other non-Microsoft antivirus software on this windows computer. I've never installed any additional anti-virus to the computer except for briefly malwareBytes to check my computer.

[Maurice Naggar]

Hi. My name is Maurice. I will guide you.

Please be sure to just Attach report files as we go along.

As first steps, do all that is listed on this link 

https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/9573-im-infected-what-do-i-do-now/?tab=comments#comment-46166

 

 

[BigEplayer]

Hello Maurice, here are the report files:

Addition.txt FRST.txt

[Maurice Naggar]

Thank you.

This is just a first action.

In Malwarebytes for Windows program, we want to do a special scan.

Click Settings ( gear icon) at the top right of Malwarebytes window. We want to see the SETTINGS window.

Then click the Security tab.   

Scroll down and lets be sure the line in SCAN OPTIONs for "Scan for rootkits" is ON 👈

Click it to get it ON if it does not show a blue-color

.

Next, click the small x on the Settings line to go to the main Malwarebytes Window.

 

Next click the blue button marked Scan.

When the scan phase is done, be real sure you Review and have all detected lines items check-marked on each line on the left. That too is very critical.

You can actually click ( tick ) the topmost left check-box on the very top line to get ALL lines ticked ( all selected). 👈

🔻

Then click on Quarantine selected.

 

Then, locate the Scan run report; export out a copy; & then attach in with your reply.

See https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038479194-View-Reports-and-History-in-Malwarebytes-for-Windows-v4

[BigEplayer]

I ran the scan like you said, seems like nothing was detected:

ScanRepo.txt

[Maurice Naggar]

Thanks. It seems there is no actual active malware.

Now then, if you see a file named blank.gif

Do a right click with the mouse & select DELETE  on that file.

[  2   ]

I would suggest a free scan with the ESET Online Scanner

Go to https://download.eset.com/com/eset/tools/online_scanner/latest/esetonlinescanner.exe

It will start a download of "esetonlinescanner.exe"

Save the file to your system, such as the Downloads folder, or else to the Desktop.

 

Go to the saved file, and double click it to get it started.

 

When presented with the initial ESET options, click on "Computer Scan".

Next, when prompted by Windows, allow it to start by clicking Yes

When prompted for scan type, Click on Full scan

Look at & tick ( select ) the radio selection "Enable ESET to detect and quarantine potentially unwanted applications" and click on Start scan button.

Have patience. The entire process may take an hour or more. There is an initial update download.

There is a progress window display.

You should ignore all prompts to get the ESET antivirus software program. ( e.g. their standard program). You do not need to buy or get or install anything else.

When the scan is completed, if something was found, it will show a screen with the number of detected items. If so, click the button marked “View detected results”.

Click The blue “Save scan log” to save the log.

If something was removed and you know it is a false finding, you may click on the blue ”Restore cleaned files” ( in blue, at bottom).

Press Continue when all done. You should click to off the offer for “periodic scanning”.

[BigEplayer]

Thank you so much Maurice! I think I will do the scan later just in case, but now I know I probably don't have an infection after all.

[Maurice Naggar]

Good afternoon. How is the system today ?  Have you completed my last suggestion ?

[BigEplayer]

I haven't ran the long scan. So far everything has been perfectly fine and I see no issues : )

[Maurice Naggar]

Hi, Ok. At this point, is there anything that you need ?

[Maurice Naggar]

Since this issue is resolved the topic will now be closed to prevent others from posting here.

If you need assistance please start your own new topic and someone will be happy to assist you.

Thanks