WebJunction

One of the more annoying nasties that you can get on your computer is a web page hijacking Trojan.

What is this?
A Trojan, is a destructive program that masquerades as an usable application. Unlike viruses, trojans does not replicate themselves. One example of a trojan horse is a program that claims to find and delete viruses, but instead it introduces a virus on your computer.

How do I know I have one?
• Your browser homepage has been changed, and if keeps resetting to another page even when you change it back.
• Excessive pop-up ads.
• New toolbars in your browser that you did not install yourself.
• Searching on Google searches on another page anyway.
• Links appear all over web sites, and clicking on them takes you to a search.

What can this do?
• Steal your passwords
• SPAM your email account
• Crash your computer
• Bombard you with advertising
• Steal your credit card numbers
• Watch the sites you visit.
• Hijack your web browser

How do I get these?
• By Downloading Music, sharing photos and exchanging files
• Free programs that you install
• Email attachments sent to you
• Browsing Websites and clicking on Pop-up ads
• Adult-related web sites
• Downloading games

The above list is common sense except browsing websites. The way this works is this:

If you are visiting a site, and a popup appears asking if you want to make this your homepage, ALWAYS say no. This is the most common tool used to download web hijackers onto your computer.

Sometimes, even if you say no, the box will keep popping up asking you to set this as your home page or install this program until you say yes. If this occurs – use “control alt and delete” go to the task list, and crash Internet Explorer.

Do not say YES!

The fact that a button has a caption of "NO" doesn't mean that is not going to do something. You can define a button on a screen to have any caption on it, the code that is executed once someone clicks onthat button is another story. I will actually click on the X at the top right hand corner so not to trigger any routine attached to any one of the buttons on the pop-up screen. Still, at least in Visual Basic, you can detect if a window is closed and ... execute code. However I haven't programmed in Java or any other flavor of it so I can't definitely say this is true for this programing language. I guess the best option is to have a browser that block pop-ups.

is there a quick, easy, reliable tool to check for this stuff? i'm thinking of something like those little virus tools that search everything and get rid of them for you.