A friend of mine has got a virus(?) on his computer that seems to log him into ICQ and send out messages on ICQ that say
[link removed] :)) LOL
Any ideas how to remove this? He doesn’t have Norton Anti-Virus, so if there’s a way to do this with using a Symantec program, that’d be great. But he’s pretty desperate for solutions even if that means having to buy NAV. And as a university at end of semester he doesn’t have a lot of disposable income at hand.
Thanks.
Could a mod please remove the link in the message if I screwed up? The link isn’t dangerous. The website doesn’t exist but you never know. Sorry.
Have him install Zone Alarm. It will notify when resident programs attempt to connect to the internet by bringing up a window that says “scumware.exe is trying to access the internet…” Then you can Google for “scumware.exe” and see what the popular opinion is on how to get rid of whatever bug you have.
I recently had the Coolwebsearch browser hijack trojan and used this method to figure out what it was and how to get rid of it.
I use AVG Free 6.0 from Grisoft. Great anti-virus scanner and real-time protection for free.
On 2nd thought Zone Alarm might not work because your friend will want to give ICQ permission at access the internet. Whatever bug he has is using ICQ to do its dirty work…
Install and run SpyBot and AdAware and hopefully they’ll find the buggers.
DON’T CLICK ON THAT LINK!!
It leads to a website that exploits a vulnerability in IE, and installs a virus.
More info here.
Contacting a Mod to remove that link.
OK, I really am sorry if I screwed up anyone’s computers. I feel so bad right now. 
I’m not sure about the danger of the link since I don’t use IE, but but I have deleted it to be on the safe side.
bibliophage
moderator GQ