Question for 'puter literate types...

[bwdial]

I went away for a week and returned to work to find that my computer's being hijacked. What can I do?

[Efexeye]

Depends on what you mean by "hijacked". But some of the steps I would take would be doing a system scan with Norton, downloading and running Ad-Aware and Spybot, and doing a Windows update to make sure your security is current.

Beyond that, you 'd have to get help from a techie.

[KingBison]

Us puter literate types need puter literate descriptions. Your computer being hijacked means dick. Are you being infected by a virus. Has someone set your computer up as a server(pop mail, Irc, ftp, etc...), Is someone accessing your system from a remote terminal on your network. Do you have any kind of Firewall?(hardware or software). We need to know these kinds of things.

[bwdial]

I have McAfee installed now. It has been catching all sorts of nefarious viruses (although there seems to have been a slow down today, as it hasn't warned me about any attempts) and I scan at least twice a day.
The hijacking part goes something like this. With the browser open (and even when it's not) it goes to sexocean dot com or to some generic search site. I have also noticed that, while I am able to access my Hotmail account, I am unable to do anything once I am in. I can log on and view my Inbox and my Junkmail, but if I click on a specific message, I get nothing...and then it usually redirects (or hijacks) me to the aforementioned shiz-nit.
Same thing happens when I click to empty the Junkmail.
Hotmail used to be my homepage, but now it's some other generic search site. Every time I change it to Hotmail, it eventually changes back to the other crap.
I don't know all of what happened while I was gone, but my computer used to be the only one connected to the DSL line. Now, my cousin has moved the DSL modem into the closet where the old router, from a failed attempt at networking computers fizzled nearly a decade ago resides, and connected a computer in the sales office to it as well.
It's not having any of these problems. I am able to access my Hotmail and use all of the functions with no problem from that machine.
Also, I have discovered that if I open a second browser, and then access the internet via the first browser, the assholes only redirect the second browser.
I downloaded "HijackThis", and it shows me some of the files (I guess that's the term) that may be hijacking me, but I don't what's what.

[Matthew]

Use these following steps to cure your browser.

1. open up your browser, and you will see a menu on top: Tools->Internet Options, retype in http://www.google.com for your home page.

2. Restart your browser, and search for Search and Destroy, download and install.

3. Tools->Internet Options, delete cookies, and delete files.

4. Run Search and Destroy

5. Restart your computer.

EDIT:

Just for the record, a lot of porn sites automatically set your home page. Stop watching porn, and if you watch porn, go to a site that does not have spyware, ask RB what those sites are. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[Threadkiller]

If that doesn't work there are some different pages that contain instructions on how to remove this type thing below:

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?t=175797&goto=nextnewest

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dvk01uk/chronicles.htm#cwshredder