Uh oh...I've opened an email which I shouldn't have...

Lizbetty

I received an email from postcard.com yesterday, and like a complete numpty, I've opened the attachment...

I have McAfee Security Centre installed, and a message came up about a trojan which also said 'cannot be deleted' - tbh, the rest is a blur as I panicked immediately deleted the email (the screen was stuck for a while and the Mcafee msg disappeared). My McAfee virus scan was then showing as disabled, which I thought was odd, and so I switched it back on and ran a scan which came up ok.

I'm panicking a bit as I don't know much about trojans, etc, but from what I can gather they just lurk about in the background and can be quite untracable. I do online banking and so does my husband, in fact, everything we do is online now, but we haven't done any since this has happened. I daren't in case something is watching me undetected!

Any advice anyone has on this would be very much appreciated. I feel really stupid, I just didn't think at all when I opened it as I was rushing as usual. I've been awake most of the night wondering what to do!

Thanks everyone

Lucy

PaulK_3

If Mcafee is disabled you need to be careful, download spybot S&D, spywareblaster and AVG and run them one at a time. Do not go near any sites that require your banking details etc until you are sure the PC is clear again.
Can you get into Mcafee as it should have a scan results page that can tell you what it found, if so then you may be able to go in and manually delete the file.

PaulK_3

Spybot
SpywareBlaster
AVG Free

BritBrat

If you still have problems deleting it.

Turn off system restore and boot to safe mode then run Anti virus/Spyware programs.

judderman62

download A2 (a squared) it is the only FREE trojan detector /remover I know of.

A lot of the other progs mentioned above MAY help but they may not as they are to deal with spy/ad ware whereas A2 is specifically aimed to deal with Trojans.

Doing a full scan with fully updated versions of the software mentioned by others as well as your AV prog would be a good idea too as by it's very definition the Trojan will have installed something else nasty on your PC - could be anything from a virus, a worm if you're really unlucky maybe a key logger that will record all your keystrokes - some of these are actually specifically designed to look for passwords and then send them home.

Also make sure your firewall is set to it's tightest settings and if anythonf tries to access the internet that you're not 100% sure about deny it access.

Lastly when your subscription to McAfee is up - don't go For MvAfee again nor nOrton they are both quite poor.

Go for one of these:

Steganos/Kaspersky - two almost identical progs - steganos is the cheaper
NOD32

Good luck and let us know how you get on

all the best

Judderman

Lizbetty

Thanks a lot for the advice everyone. I've run Mcafee and nothing comes up - I've downloaded all the software mentioned, and run checks on them all apart from AVG and A2 which are running now.

My computer is sooo slow though, it's taken me til now to get all the software downloaded and it's crashed a coupla times, I'm guessing this is because my computer is rubbish rather than because I have a trojan? It's a bit frightening as even if I run all the progs by the sound of it, something could still be lurking?!

McAfee is all running ok now, but the fact the virusscan switched off after I clicked on the attachment to the email is slightly worrying, although it is working now - apart from the fact it says there's an update waiting but it won't update when I try. I've made a note about the better alternatives, thanks for that. I always use McAfee, just because I know it really and I've never had any problems, it's good to know about better ones to try next time though.

I'll keep you posted once all the checks are done, I'll post the A2 download too - there was 2 options, one A-squared Hijackfree and one A-squared Free, wasn't sure which it would be so I've done them both!

Thanks again

Lucy

judderman62

Lucyeff wrote: »

Thanks a lot for the advice everyone. I've run Mcafee and nothing comes up - I've downloaded all the software mentioned, and run checks on them all apart from AVG and A2 which are running now.

My computer is sooo slow though, it's taken me til now to get all the software downloaded and it's crashed a coupla times, I'm guessing this is because my computer is rubbish rather than because I have a trojan? It's a bit frightening as even if I run all the progs by the sound of it, something could still be lurking?!

McAfee is all running ok now, but the fact the virusscan switched off after I clicked on the attachment to the email is slightly worrying, although it is working now - apart from the fact it says there's an update waiting but it won't update when I try. I've made a note about the better alternatives, thanks for that. I always use McAfee, just because I know it really and I've never had any problems, it's good to know about better ones to try next time though.

I'll keep you posted once all the checks are done, I'll post the A2 download too - there was 2 options, one A-squared Hijackfree and one A-squared Free, wasn't sure which it would be so I've done them both!

Thanks again

Lucy

it's the second one lucy - PC running slow could be your system spec (was it running slowly for a while ?) or a symptom that you already have some malware on your system - let's hope it isn't the latter.

superscaper

Lucyeff wrote: »

Thanks a lot for the advice everyone. I've run Mcafee and nothing comes up -

In my personal experience McAfee doesn't catch all viruses. That was one of the main reasons I dumped McAfee. Even though I get it free it still isn't worth it and you're better off changing in my opinion.

Conor_3

DO NOT USE MCAFEE to detect this virus. Use another one. Go to www.eset.com and install the 30 day trial of NOD32 and use that to scan. NEVER EVER trust an AV program to find a virus that disabled it, no matter how temporarily.

As BritBrat said, you need to turn off System Restore before you do this as this is where a lot of malware hides.

Reluctant_spender

Download Dr Web cure it. It is a self contained anti virus program that is also good for trojans - it is also free

http://download.drweb.com/drweb+cureit/

Lizbetty

Thanks everyone. It might sound mad, but I've downloaded all the above and run them (just doing the last one) then deleted them as my computer was so slow, I didn't know if it was the software or a virus.

There were a couple of things found which seemed to be linked to windows security and my ebay toolbar, which was all. I'm still paranoid though and haven't dared do any online banking! Would you think it's probably ok to do so after all that, or could something still be lurking? I really do appreciate everyone's help, I suppose this was bound to happen at some point but it's not something I'm clued up on at all!

Lucy