I just got hit with something that has taken over the background on my display. It says I should install an antivirus or spyware remover and it gives me an option to click on to see a list of the top spyware removers. I ran Spysweeper and it looked like it took care of it, but I can't get it off of my display. Spysweeper gave me a message saying it would try to take over my system until I downloaded the software. Any advice on what I can do to get around this?

reply #1
Hi rjmurray

There is a trojan called Warspy which causes similar symptoms to those you described, information here:
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/virus.aspx?id=46980

First I would try running the following two spyware remover programs:

Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Spybot http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download

Also get your anti-virus up to date and scan your PC. If you don't have an anti-virus program download AVG Anti-Virus http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

I also read one user had this problem and removed it by using the Ewido Security Suite:
http://www.ewido.net/en/

If you think you have removed the trojan but your display is still affected, there are some registry settings you can change as described in the messages on this forum:
http://www.techzonez.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-14914.html
Editing the registry is done by going to your Start menu, clicking Run and typing regedit then OK.
However you must be careful when editing the registry, as changing the wrong settings can make things worse.

Finally I would recommend you make sure Windows is up to date by visiting www.windowsupdate.com, and if you can try to use an alternative browser such as Firefox from http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ which is better protected from spyware and viruses than Internet Explorer.