How does one remove a trojan when you don't know its name?

Question

OK this is a real doozie....

A few month's ago dumb silly stupid old mcafee popped up with a little sign saying my system was infected from a trojan. The screen popped down again before I could catch the name of the trojan! Since then everythings been acting funny, and the computer has been rather slow. programs also randomly close down.
It seems like its a smart trojan because whenever I try to use the cleaner on ewido it closes the browser!
I have since installed avg free and Norton and run various scans but they aren't detecting anything.

Can anyone please help?

Answer 1

Here you have some good and free antivirus program:
http://askcomputerexpert.ws43.com/download/
Get one!

Answer 2

How to remove these infections


We have finally arrived at the section you came here for. You are most likely reading this tutorial because you are infected with some sort of malware and want to remove it. With this knowledge that you are infected, it is also assumed that you examined the programs running on your computer and found one that does not look right. You did further research by checking that program against our Startup Database or by searching in Google and have learned that it is an infection and you now want to remove it.

If you have identified the particular program that is part of the malware, and you want to remove it, please follow these steps.

Download and extract the Autoruns program by Sysinternals to C:\Autoruns


Reboot into Safe Mode so that the malware is not started when you are doing these steps. Many malware monitor the keys that allow them to start and if they notice they have been removed, will automatically replace that startup key. For this reason booting into safe mode allows us to get past that defense in most cases.


Navigate to the C:\Autoruns folder you created in Step 1 and double-click on autoruns.exe.


When the program starts, click on the Options menu and enable the following options by clicking on them. This will place a checkmark next to each of these options.


Include empty locations


Verify Code Signatures


Hide Signed Microsoft Entries


Then press the F5 key on your keyboard to refresh the startups list using these new settings.


The program shows information about your startup entries in 8 different tabs. For the most part, the filename you are looking for will be found under the Logon or the Services tabs, but you should check all the other tabs to make sure they are not loading elsewhere as well. Click on each tab and look through the list for the filename that you want to remove. The filename will be found under the Image Path column. There may be more than one entry associated with the same file as it is common for malware to create multiple startup entries. It is important to note that many malware programs disguise themselves by using the same filenames as valid Microsoft files. it is therefore important to know exactly which file, and the folder they are in, that you want to remove. You can check our Startup Database for that information or ask for help in our computer help forums.


Once you find the entry that is associated with the malware, you want to delete that entry so it will not start again on the next reboot. To do that right click on the entry and select delete. This startup entry will now be removed from the Registry.


Now that we made it so it will not start on boot up, you should delete the file using My Computer or Windows Explorer. If you can not see the file, it may be hidden. To allow you to see hidden files you can follow the steps for your operating system found in this tutorial:

How to see hidden files in Windows


When you are finished removing the malware entries from the Registry and deleting the files, reboot into normal mode as you will now be clean from the infection.

Answer 3

Right you want to download a free program called hijackthis by going to the TomCoyote Forum http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/ and read the quick start. Follow the instructions and produce a hijackthis log and post it to a forum. Very experienced people will examine the log in detail and advise you what to do its a very good free service. They will tell you which programs to download and run, you should end up with a perfectly clean machine.

But if your a bit lazy you could try some of the online scanners
Here are a list of them from my yahoo computer group links

Online Scanner
F-Secure
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml

Online Scanner
Symantec Security and Virus Scanner
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym

Online Scanner
Panda ActiveScan
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan


Online Scanner
Kaspersky Lab Technology
http://usa.kaspersky.com/services/free-virus-scanner.php

Online Scanner
Trend Micro House Call
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Online Scanner
eTrust Antivirus Web Scanner
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx

Online Scanner
BitDefender
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html

Online Scanner
Windows.com Trojan Scanner
http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/

Online Scanner
McAfee
http://au.mcafee.com/root/mfs/scan.asp

Online Scanner
Windows Live One Care
http://safety.live.com/site/en-US/scanner/eula.htm?scanner=default&goback=%2Fsite%2Fen-US%2Fdefault.htm

I hope this helps

Answer 4

use your scans in safe mode Norton and macafee are both resource hogs and will slow down your PC.
This is how to use safe mode.
For Windows XP

If the computer is running it is best to shut down Windows and then turn off the power.

Begin by first clicking on the Start Button and then click on Turn Off Computer.

Now click on the Turn Off red colored icon to shut down your computer system.

It is best to wait between 15 to 30 seconds before you turn your system back on.

Turn on your computer and start tapping the F8 key on your keyboard.

Some Computers may display a keyboard error message if you begin tapping F8 too quickly.

Restart your computer again and begin tapping the F8 key a brief second or two later.

When the Windows Advanced Options Menu appears, Choose the Safe Mode option and hit Enter.

Windows will now boot your computer up in Safe Mode.

Answer 5

Yeah I had the same problem I downloaded ewido and got rid of my trojan and i got rid of mcafee for letting it get into my pc I use avg zonealarm and ewido and their by far way better than mcafee.

Answer 6

It could be one of the trojans called smitfraud. Read about it on the link below.
http://siri.urz.free.fr/Fix/SmitfraudFix_En.php

Answer 7

mcafee is terriable get a better anti virus scanner
i suggest bitdefender

Answer 8

try Avast pro 4.7 very effective and free

Answer 9

take your computer in.