If you're ever going to spend money on security software again, I have two words for you, and only two words: Eset NOD32Unfortunately, we're entering the post-antivirus era where it's only a very small part of an ever growing and absurdest arsenal. Even the best products (Eset and Kaspersky) can't effectively keep up anymore, which means it's that much more important to practice security best practices and common sense when operating your computer online. Also, use an adblocker at the least with your browser. This also means that spending money on AV and security software is throwing good money after bad, and MSSE or Avira (both free) is sufficient if you don't do things that can compromise your system. It needs to be understood that the best AV software in the world can't protect a careless user. Realtime AV software is more of a canary in the coal mine anymore. We're all human, we all make mistakes and can't be vigilant 100% of the time, but we can reduce the possibility of compromise through practice and common sense. If you're going to run Windows, your best bet is to be careful, backup your data, keep everything patched and current, and learn how to restore your OS to factory default if you get compromised again.Which brings us to the advice on what to do from here: learn from the experience.You might be able to roll back your system to a date prior to the infection using System Restore, but I've run into situations where there's been great to limited success doing so. It's the first place I'd start, though.Now, I come from a *nix background, full neckbeard, security rigorous, and there's a saying amongst my kind: once a box is compromised, it can't be trusted. Lots of Windows folks (techs included) are more than happy to try and clean up infections and malware. Can it be cleaned up? Yes. Should it be cleaned up? Definitely. If you want to go that route and a simple system restore doesn't get you, spend the time and/or money to do so (there's a lot of good and legitimate tools out there, and several times that number of garbage scammy malware posing as such)... but understand that there can be an art to it depending on what you're dealing with, and you should start by removing Spyhunter. Here's a guide to get you started, though it is getting a little dated. That said, sometimes (especially with Vista forward) if you've got your data backed up, it's just easier to restore to factory, restore your data, and reinstall your apps. It just depends on how technically savvy you are and how much you value your time and money.All things considered, however, this should give you a few options and paths to start with and try on your own before dropping any more money, and it's just as important to understand what needs to change post-cleanup to keep this from happening again as it is to know how to fix it. I hope that this and the resources linked helps give you that greater understanding moving forward. Good luck!
Quote from: Sid Hoffman on December 03, 2014, 10:37:26 PMOne thing that I've done for family members which has helped somewhat is setting up a separate Administrator account and user accounts. They log in using the regular user accounts and then they know that if they get anything that prompts them for the Administrator password, that is a red flag and they back out of it. I went from rebuilding my aunt & uncle's laptop every 3 months to not having done it a single time in the last year. It's too easy to screw things up when their primary account ran with Administrator privileges and they simply had to click the "OK" button to continue with something that was doing a software install.I'm glad you mentioned this. For the sake of not being too redundant and even more long winded, I left it out of my initial response, but it is #3 on the security best practices link I provided... and it's an important one.NEVER RUN UNDER THE ADMIN/ROOT ACCOUNT should be a phrase tattooed into the minds and etched onto the monitors and keyboards of every computer user on the planet. Not running as an admin by default under Windows and doing exactly as you say about security escalation requests will stop about 90% of the threats out there from getting far enough to do any damage, as they rely heavily on social engineering under an admin account to get installed in the first place.
One thing that I've done for family members which has helped somewhat is setting up a separate Administrator account and user accounts. They log in using the regular user accounts and then they know that if they get anything that prompts them for the Administrator password, that is a red flag and they back out of it. I went from rebuilding my aunt & uncle's laptop every 3 months to not having done it a single time in the last year. It's too easy to screw things up when their primary account ran with Administrator privileges and they simply had to click the "OK" button to continue with something that was doing a software install.
Avast! is what I use, and is widely considered the best free antivirus software.http://lifehacker.com/five-best-desktop-antivirus-applications-1607557993
