Ceres, Google Problems and all

[oncemorealoft]

Well I'm having fun. Went away for a few days and the kids must have accessed something bad.

First, keep getting lots of Ceres pop-ups. I have run spybot, ad-aware and a newly installed Norton anti-virus 2005 but this has failed to irradicate the problem.

Also noticing that in any Google search, the first three or four returns whatever word has been enteerd will be directing you to e-bay or smiley download sites.

Finally, keep getting a message on logging out that a programme called tappmk.exe is unable to run. Can't find any web references to this.

Any suggestions chaps?

Many thanks

[Irish Steve]

There's been a problem in recent weeks with the DNS servers of some ISP's being deliberately corrupted, with the result that attempting to access some popular web sites ends up with the computer concerned being redirected to a malware site that then downloads malicious software onto the local machine.

This then does things to the machine when it attempts to get to other sites, and can also try to steal access codes or passwords or both.

The best thing I can suggest at the moment would be to check that there's no spyware or similar on your machine, make sure that the temporary files area has been cleared, delete the recent history in Internet Explorer, and make sure that your anti virus and firewall packages are up to date. There's several packages suggested in messages here that can do these checks, and if you're not sure about the results, post them here for the more experienced users to view, and they will be able to confirm if there are any issues with the machine.

I can't be more specific on this one, as even the security people are having problems getting an exact handle on the DNS issue, both in terms of how widespread it really is, and in terms of the potential for damage to user machines, they know it's happening, but can't determine exactly where it's coming from, or the exact end result of the poisoning of the DNS servers.

[oncemorealoft]

Thanks Irish Steve.

As mentioned in my previous e-mail, I've run Ad Aware, Spy Bot and Norton Antivurius to no effect.

Norton Antivirus has identified the Tappmk.exe as a problem but cannot delete it.

I am going to try and run my various antiviral and anti-adware software in safe mode.

Any further thoughts greatly appreciated .


Many thanks