Spyware problem?

[LPerugini]

I got this call from my Mom.."I can't get on the net". I assume the problem is her NIC which has been acting up. I get to her house, turn on the computer, and everything is working normally for about 10 minutes. Then suddenly, I no longer have control of the mouse, and dialog boxes are popping up like wild, and it appears that someone else is in control of the mouse. But the actions don't really have any purpose. the start menu is opening and closing, various windows dialog boxes are opening, and it is all going on at a very rapid pace..almost too fast to see what is happening. Mom says "See, I can't get on the net", and I chuckle because what she means is "my computer is useless to e in this condition". After a while, the problem stops. It then comes back intermittently.

So now to the root of the question. This is a windows XP home SP 2 box, on a generic athlon set up. I have firefox, zone alarm, norton antivirus, spyware blaster, spybot S&D, and adaware all installed. Norton is up to date, but the other programs have not been updated in a couple of months. During these times when the computer stops acting up, I update and run all programs. Norton, Adaware, and Spybot S&D really don't find anything other than a few tracking cookies, which I delete, but the problem persists. I check the running processes and registry, and nothing is running unexpectedly. I run windows update and it tells me the system is up to date. I am beginning to think that maybe the mouse has gone bad (short circuit perhaps?), and then I update spyware blaster and click the button for "protect against all known threats". Guess what, the mouse problem disappears. I run the machine for another hour, doing restarts, running programs, and generally exercising it to see if I can recreate the problem. No luck, all is normal. It seems like this was the result of malware, but if so, why wouldn't spybot, adaware or NAV see it? Likewise, I never really removed any software, so can the problem really be "fixed"?

Any thoughts or advice? I hate to leave this issue unsolved, since Dad does a lot of online banking and such.

 

[destructo2k3]

Well in my experiences that is very odd that things like Norton, Firefox (running any extensions to help with ads and things of that sort) and Spybot S&D didn't clear w/e problem you would ever have. One program that you COULD try is BPS Spyware and Adware Remover. I have been using that for quite some time off and on and it has worked VERY well. It has picked up things that other Spy or Ad programs haven't so give that a look and see if that solves your problem. Good luck.

 

[LPerugini]

Thanks for the feedback. Does it even seem reasonable that these problems are the result of somekind of spyware or malware? I googled but couldn't find anyting that would seem to cause these symptoms. Perhaps this is really a hardware problem, and maybe the thing with spyware blaster is just coincidental?

 

[destructo2k3]

well honestly i wouldnt know if that would cause the things that are happening in your situation. Things now adays do some really weird things. and to find out if the blaster is a freak thing try out the spyware program i suggested and see if that picks something up that wasnt picked up. it searches and finds things like i said before that i never found with other programs. get back with the results.

 

[pkme2]

Ad-aware and Spybot (personal) are freeware. But as freeware, they're good; better are the pro versions for the other malware.

I use SpySweeper and Norton AntiVirus with no problems on my students and my computers.They are set with automated updates.
No malware have ever compromised my ability to use the Internet (because I run scheduled sweeps). No trojans or worms hever infected my systems.

One can use the freebies, but you may need to get the pro versions to be malware free. Your choice.....

 

[mechBgon]

Try this as a fact-finding step: http://www.omnicast.net/~tmcfadden/scan.txt It runs a one-pass McAfee scanning utility. Use the Safe Mode W/ Command Prompt like it says to. If you get interesting results, which seems likely, then PM me the text from the C:\report.html file and maybe I can offer insights on how it got a foot in the door.

Also, what version is your NAV installation? If it's obsolete-generation stuff, there's one major problem right there.