Obscure Problems

Some Obscure Problems

Hi Everyone,

Well first of all let me appologise for my lack of input on these pages for the last few days, but after all I have been saying about security & safely surfing on the web, I end up with a major problem myself hahaha.

Hey I bet your thinking “huh why don’t he take his own advice“  & I couldn’t blame you if you did think that. However I do not advice you to do anything I do not do myself on my own PC, what works for me will also work for you with no problems at all.

Anyway the love of my life had been browsing around on the internet, looking at PeP (Philippine Entertainment Portal) & a couple of health food & nutrition web sites, when she started having problems with pages refusing to load, the PC just hanging there between pages & nothing she did would help the situation. She called me to checkout the PC and sure enough there was definately something wrong, just checkout the image below.

Because of the number of images in this post I’m going to have to use thumbnails to display them, however if you click the image you will see the full size version opened in a new window, after viewing the image, just close that window to return to this page.

Now as can clearly be seen from that image, my laptop was struggling to open any internet pages because something was clearly using almost 100% of system resources. This is so typical of spyware infections & I cannot emphasise enough how useful Task Manager can be with regard to indicating problems on your PC.

Ok so we now know what the problem is, but now we need to find out why or what is causing this…? So first things first, as mentioned in a previous article, unplug from the internet ! If this is caused by spyware, then to stay connected to the internet will only invite more trouble, as many of these malicious codes are designed to download other little horrors for as long as you stay connected to the net.

 After a little digging around, I discover that it is actually I.Explorer (internet explorer) that is busy sucking the life out of my poor little laptop. This can cleary be seen when I clicked on the procesess tab in task manager, just look at the highlighted blue entry, I.Explorer running at 98% usage ! Hmmm again very typical of a spyware infection. Now since I.Explorer is not a critical system process, I know it is safe to click “end process”. This I do and the result confirms that yes indeed I.Explorer is the culprit.

 You will notice that each step I take in trying to track down & rectify this problem, I keep checking back to Task Manager. If you don’t know how to get Task Manager open on your desk top, just hold down the keys marked ctrl & alt with two fingers of your left hand and whilst holding those two keys down, press the delete key once with your right hand !

You can clearly see in this image, the drop on the graph when I shut down the process “I.Explorer”, but just look at the rest of the graph it is still peaking wildly and still indicating to me at least, that we still have a problem on this PC.

Ok everything is pointing to either a browser hijacker or spyware infection so time to scan the system with my favorite tools, BitDefender my anti-virus & then Spyware Doctor my anti-spyware tool.

 Ok BitDefender turns up nothing at all & I must be honest, I really did not expect it to, as I have said previously in an article on Virus or Spyware, each is designed to find and therefore deal with different problems and while BitDefender is one of the best anti-virus packages available at the moment, it does not detect or stop all spyware. Although the new improved 2009 version has now been designed to deal with both spyware & viruses.

Ok so on to the next step Spyware Doctor, now this I am sure will track down the little beasty that is causing so much grief !

 Right, now although I usually run Spyware Doc on “Intelli Scan” which is basically a short scan of the more critical areas of a PC, for example your sys & sys32 folders, which are very often where you will find an infection. I have decided for this scan , to select “Full System Scan” as can be seen in the image.

If there are any little gremlins hiding in my Laptop, then this scan is going to pick them up ! Hahaha

Ok scan complete and shock horror !!! nothing but the usual adware & tracking cookies. At this point if I had any hair, I’d be tugging it out by the handful. Without sounding like a smart a***, it is not often that I am stumped with regard to PC problems, but this is starting to give me a headache !

Ok time for a coffee break, a ciggy & a bit of fresh air whilst I ponder my next move.

Hmmm feeling somewhat refreshed after my coffee I check on Task Manager again just to confirm that there is still a problem and as can be seen in this graph, we still have high peaking although the PC is sat at idle with no programs other than Task Manager running. Now at this point on anyone elses PC I would be recommending a format & re-load the operating system, but as my PC is full of all sorts of important stuff regarding websites etc I really don’t want to have to resort to such a drastic measure. Then I remember reading a few weeks back, something about Java either being corrupted or infected, unfortunately it was to long ago to recall the exact details, but at least I had something to go on.

Ok so as the initial problem seemed to be in I.Explorer, that is where we will make a start. I uninstall I.E.7 and also all Java packages that could be found in the “Add & Remove Programs” in my control panel. You may think this a bit drastic, but it just causes IE to revert back to IE6 which loads with my Windows OS.

Now we go to those very nice people at Microsoft.com to download a fresh copy of IE7 & as luck would have it, I already had Java 6 saved in my software folder from when I last formatted a friends PC.

So IE7 downloaded and installed, also Java 6 installed and finally PC re-boot before we go yet again to Task Manager to check on the outcome.

 Ah yes that’s cured it, as you can see in this image, the typical trace of a clean PC at idle hahaha. So what was the problem…? Well I’ll go with the corrupt or infected Java for lack of a better explanation. But this has clearly proved that even us techies can sometimes have problems. Can you totally safe guard yourself from such things…? Well yes of course it is possible, but at what cost…?

From my point of view, it is far better to have some safe guards against infection, but more important are the tools & the knowledge to be able with these problems.

Look at it this way, you own a nice house, you know there are theives & burglars around, so you install a buglar alarm (anti-virus on your PC)in plain view on your front wall of the house. This causes you very little inconvenience as all you do when entering your humble abode, is to punch in the code to disarm the alarm, easy eh!. But a really determined burglar could still get in and disable your alarm, so you have a very nice doberman & baseball bat lying in wait for just such an occasion. The point is you do not rush out & put a 30,000 volt fence around your property, dig a moat & fill it with flesh eating piranha oh & finally install a drawbridge to allow you access to your property.

Ok a bit extreme maybe, but the point is valid, you do not rush out and buy all the latest security software for your PC, why…? because if you did, then yes your PC would be safer, but it would get so bogged down with running all these programs that it would literally be a pig to use ! Your system resources & CPU processing power are limited commodities and as such you should use them wisely. Can you imagine the work involved if your house was as well protected as I mentioned above…? You arrive home from a hard days work, get out of the car to switch off the electric fence, then drive upto the moat, get out again to lower the drawbridge, drive over the drawbridge, park the car, get out of the car, go into the house & punch in the code to disable your burglar alarm & all this in the pouring rain !!! Hahaha