A user downloaded/installed some kind of spyware. Every time you do a search in IE (regardless of search provider) it redirects to mxmediamarket.com - It’s very annoying.

I reset all of the IE security levels. I’ve run Spybot, A Squared, Adaware and McAfee. I’ve also taken a look at the Hijack This log and can’t find anything. A^2 found a rogue file in the windows directory and couldn’t remove it, but it doesn’t find it anymore.

As a last resort, I tried a system restore which seems to be corrupt.

I finally ran cwshredder and it fixed it in 45 seconds. It labeled it as a cws.hidden.dll removal. I wanted to post this in case anyone else ran into this problem. I couldn’t find any help on google.

1 Spice up

It sounds like a Browser Helper Object (BHO). They can be removed with spybot in advanced mode under tools.

Jon :slight_smile:

Forgot about those advanced features, thanks Jon! Sometimes it’s the simple things that get me when I over-think a problem. I knew it had to be a simple fix.

Still,

Thanks for the post. Its good to share your knowledge. Knowledge is not for the greedy. For those that do not own a corporate copy of spybot . . . . aha, so it has value . . . thanks again :wink:

Obviously I’ll throw Malwarebytes out there as a great tool to use, but in addition to whichever tool you use, I sometimes will boot the PC up in Safe Mode and run the scan. This usually prevents any Spyware programs or services that prevent cleaning programs from removing the rougue software from starting up. After that scan is complete, I’ll usually run a second scan on it in Normal mode as well.

But, just like you experienced, sometimes no matter what tool you use, regardless of scanning in Safe mode, you can’t get the stuff removed. (Although Malwarebytes has almost made that point non-existant.) At that point I just burn and rebuild the PC.