Hello,
I suspect my new computer (running Windows 7) has been infected with malware, but I can't seem to root out the cause. I was initially using Google Chrome and found myself unable to open certain sites -- like Google and Gmail -- without being denied access. The page that came up read something like: "The site's security certificate is signed with a weak algorithm" (see link below)
http://chromium.googlecode.com/issues/attachment?aid=1178340009000&name=gmail_error.png&token=yvThdRtEZwLq9iMnitF8uJAGfa0%3A1337448635524&inline=1
At first I thought it was a problem with Chrome, and a quick google search revealed that a lot of people were having the same problem. But then I switched to Firefox, and now, every once in a while, I keep getting these pop-up tabs linking to spam sites, or occasionally I will click on a link and will redirect me to somewhere random. I tried clean uninstalls, reinstalling, rebooting, which didn`t seem to help. So then I tried out a number of antivirus solutions, including Microsoft Security Essentials (which gave me a headache because I then kept getting notices after every single reboot that I was still infected with viruses, even after cleaning them -- later I found out this might have been a bug too), and Malwarebytes, which didn't find anything. I even tried TDSSKiller, which a lot of people seemed to have success with, but it only found one low-level threat and once eliminated it did not solve the problem. I also get an error code when trying to initiate Windows Firewall.
I`m not a techie so I don`t know how to include reports on my problems, but I`d be happy to try. The computer is brand new, practically has no personal data on it, and basically runs smoothly and quickly otherwise, but these problems are worrisome all the same. I`m considering formatting but I`ve never done that before, and I`m not sure it will even solve the problem. Any help would be much appreciated -- thanks!!!
I suspect my new computer (running Windows 7) has been infected with malware, but I can't seem to root out the cause. I was initially using Google Chrome and found myself unable to open certain sites -- like Google and Gmail -- without being denied access. The page that came up read something like: "The site's security certificate is signed with a weak algorithm" (see link below)
http://chromium.googlecode.com/issues/attachment?aid=1178340009000&name=gmail_error.png&token=yvThdRtEZwLq9iMnitF8uJAGfa0%3A1337448635524&inline=1
At first I thought it was a problem with Chrome, and a quick google search revealed that a lot of people were having the same problem. But then I switched to Firefox, and now, every once in a while, I keep getting these pop-up tabs linking to spam sites, or occasionally I will click on a link and will redirect me to somewhere random. I tried clean uninstalls, reinstalling, rebooting, which didn`t seem to help. So then I tried out a number of antivirus solutions, including Microsoft Security Essentials (which gave me a headache because I then kept getting notices after every single reboot that I was still infected with viruses, even after cleaning them -- later I found out this might have been a bug too), and Malwarebytes, which didn't find anything. I even tried TDSSKiller, which a lot of people seemed to have success with, but it only found one low-level threat and once eliminated it did not solve the problem. I also get an error code when trying to initiate Windows Firewall.
I`m not a techie so I don`t know how to include reports on my problems, but I`d be happy to try. The computer is brand new, practically has no personal data on it, and basically runs smoothly and quickly otherwise, but these problems are worrisome all the same. I`m considering formatting but I`ve never done that before, and I`m not sure it will even solve the problem. Any help would be much appreciated -- thanks!!!