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Sep. 24th, 2014 11:13 pmI'm kept from updates due to a popped key. The letter is used a lot. I'll try to fix it tomorrow.
Unrelated to the possible security attack on LJ, I think my computer is suffering from a virus.
There's a browser game I play, a free-to-play place that offers in-game currency for "pay for action" services. That means if I perform a specific action (view a website, watch a video, e&), I'll get the premium currency which I can use for better products. So I decided to try that this past Saturday: I downloaded one file, supposedly a game that also had a toolbar attached to it. Even though I opted out of the toolbar, it showed up anyway. That's when I removed the program entirely from my computer.
I immediately ran my two anti-virus programs, Avast & Spybot Search & Control. Avast found three items that it identified as PUPs; these were indeed related to the file I had downloaded. I deleted them. Spybot, my secondary malware detector, did not find anything.
However, since this incident, my computer has been slowing down (not dramatically, but certainly observably). Also, several new processes have been launched by my machine that were not present before. I know this because the browser game I play uses a lot of CPU, so I keep Task Manager open nearly all the time & monitor what is going on.
Since Saturday, "winlogon.exe", "services.exe", "csrss.exe", "spoolsv.exe" & "smss.exe" have shown up. I know that these are usually benign processes, but they were not running before. Now they are running all the time. Also, after I just rebooted, there were two iterations of "wuauclt.exe" running, one by Administrator, the other by the system itself. At first, "smss.exe", "winlogon.exe" & "services.exe" were taking up small amounts of memory (between 150-500K each); now they are using up to 10 times as much.
In addition, my CPU usage has been through the roof, consistently. This happens even if the only window open is that one browser game. While it had been hogging a lot of CPU before, it was uncommon for it to cause my computer to shoot to 100% CPU usage & plateau there.
I'm not exactly sure what to do at this point. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about registry keys in order to do the delicate surgery I suspect is necessary in this instance.
There's a browser game I play, a free-to-play place that offers in-game currency for "pay for action" services. That means if I perform a specific action (view a website, watch a video, e&), I'll get the premium currency which I can use for better products. So I decided to try that this past Saturday: I downloaded one file, supposedly a game that also had a toolbar attached to it. Even though I opted out of the toolbar, it showed up anyway. That's when I removed the program entirely from my computer.
I immediately ran my two anti-virus programs, Avast & Spybot Search & Control. Avast found three items that it identified as PUPs; these were indeed related to the file I had downloaded. I deleted them. Spybot, my secondary malware detector, did not find anything.
However, since this incident, my computer has been slowing down (not dramatically, but certainly observably). Also, several new processes have been launched by my machine that were not present before. I know this because the browser game I play uses a lot of CPU, so I keep Task Manager open nearly all the time & monitor what is going on.
Since Saturday, "winlogon.exe", "services.exe", "csrss.exe", "spoolsv.exe" & "smss.exe" have shown up. I know that these are usually benign processes, but they were not running before. Now they are running all the time. Also, after I just rebooted, there were two iterations of "wuauclt.exe" running, one by Administrator, the other by the system itself. At first, "smss.exe", "winlogon.exe" & "services.exe" were taking up small amounts of memory (between 150-500K each); now they are using up to 10 times as much.
In addition, my CPU usage has been through the roof, consistently. This happens even if the only window open is that one browser game. While it had been hogging a lot of CPU before, it was uncommon for it to cause my computer to shoot to 100% CPU usage & plateau there.
I'm not exactly sure what to do at this point. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about registry keys in order to do the delicate surgery I suspect is necessary in this instance.
