Browser Blocker malware/spyware

Never seen this one before - its on my mom's laptop.

All browsers' homepages are set to google. They open up fine. I can do a search with google, but then clicking any result, or ANY link, results in a malware/spyware popup, and the click is never visited.

If I type or copy-paste a URL into the address bar, it works OK.

It happens in both IE7 and Firefox. I've had Nod32, latest version, installed for a few months, and it didn't catch anything.


What sucks is I can't open/install ANY antivirus or spyware applications. I can't even VISIT their sites without getting a 404 (symantec.com, safer-networking.org, kaspersky.com), while other machines on the same network can get to them OK. It happens in safe mode as well.


If I can't install a spyware/malware app, how can I fix this?

 

You may have to pull the hard drive, stick it in an external enclosure, and then hook it up to another computer and scan it for malware that way. By doing that, the drive will be treated as just another passive storage medium, and will not be booted up, so any virii/malware on it will not get the chance to fire up.

 

I would just wipe and reinstall the OS, personally. But if you need to get data off then do that first. If necessary, you could use a boot disc such as the Ubuntu install CD to copy files to an external drive before reinstalling Windows.

 

Hmmm...may not have access to this laptop for a while...

I'm looking at some guides on booting using USB or CD...are there any good malware/spyware scanners for DOS?

 

I don't know about the scanners, per se; however, two items you might use to build a bootable CD/DVD that you could use to run such a scanner are the Ultimate BootCD and the Ultimate BootCD for Windows. I believe that you can add optional utilities and apps, such as a malware scanner, to the CD/DVD image before you burn it, so you could use one of those to boot up the computer and then scan for malware. I would think that, provided there's enough space, any one of the free A/V or malware applications listed in this forum would be suitable.