"Virus" that blacks out the screen on certain web pages - HELP?!

LordX

LordX

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This is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. I have cleaned a LOT of viruses - and never seen one like it.

History:
1. Went to EU's house - looked at desktop and noticed some odd discoloration/pixelization. I figured it was the video card at first - or the LCD. The customer has tested the LCD using a diff system - and it is fine.

2. Uninstalled the video card drivers - went to the web to begin getting some cleaning tools.

3. When I went to pcdecrapifier - the entire screen (except for the top 10%) went black!

If I alt-tabbed to another program - screen comes right back to normal.

ONLY when visiting web pages that this thing doesn't want you to go to does the screen get 'blacked out'.

Has anyone seen anything like this?

I have run: TDSSKILLER, Malwarebytes, and the user has norton on as well.

Each scan finds nothing. I am STUMPED!
 
Always remember: The less information you post about the make model computer, operating system, browsers you tried ,etc then the less help you should expect to get.
And if you only have two virus tools in your "kit" you are not going to defeat anything modern.
 
Win7 HP 64bit, Internet Explorer 11.

What additional tools would you recommend? I find that once a system passes a certain point of being infected that a clean installation is the best bet.

If I am going to spend 2-3 hours with a system - why not get the job DONE with a clean install as opposed to MAYBE getting it done with scans?
 
And maybe it has nothing to do with a virus? Bad video drivers perhaps? Have you looked in the event log to see if anything is triggered?
 
Other browsers? Safe Mode with Networking? All Web pages or just certain ones?
If it's all Web pages, then what point would this so called virus serve.
Malware these days is made for making money or collecting information.
 
The customer has tested the LCD using a diff system - and it is fine.
Click to expand...
Remember, this is a user, so have YOU tested the LCD? Did you try swapping in a known good video card and installing updated drivers?

Sounds more like bad hardware than a virus to me.
 
things that I find works on many machines. Rogue killer, JRT, and adwcleaner. Those don't find everything, but usually those 3 and a full antivirus scan take care of a good bit of things. Naturally if still infected I would say combofix, hitman pro to name a couple. I am finding the all in one repair tool from tweaking.com is great. Saved me from a reinstall yesterday. Occasionally I get a box that I have to do a reinstall, but not many anymore.
 
I haven't seen it yet, but I did get two calls today describing this issue. That leads me to believe that you are correct in thinking it is a virus.
 
LordX said:
I find that once a system passes a certain point of being infected that a clean installation is the best bet.

If I am going to spend 2-3 hours with a system - why not get the job DONE with a clean install as opposed to MAYBE getting it done with scans?
Click to expand...

Ok, if you think mbam and tdsskiller are enough then reformat the hard drive and start over. Its not what I would do, but we all have different methods of cleaning viruses.

I will say that if you don't improve your virus cleaning technique then ALL of your virus cleaning jobs are going to end up being reformats and reloads.
 
Our job is to repair and clean. Staples will nuke and pave. Yes once in a while we will get a virus that takes us a but too long to fix but isn't that how we learn? The next time you come across the same issue you will know exactly what to do.

Just my opinion
 
Jft - I have been doing this for over 10 years - so my 'gut' reaction is almost always near the mark.

Thank you Ohiograd for posting some other programs to try out - instead of assuming that I missed obvious steps.

To the other users who asked about which web pages are affected - I clearly stated that it was only certain web pages that were 'blacked out' - e.g. pages the thing didn't want you to see.

It was definitely 'targeted' because as soon as I would alt-tab away from the 'blocked' web page to another program the blackness would go away.

Here is a quote from my original post:

"If I alt-tabbed to another program - screen comes right back to normal.

ONLY when visiting web pages that this thing doesn't want you to go to does the screen get 'blacked out'."


It wasn't a driver issue - because the issue persisted without drivers installed for the video card.

Also another quote from my original post: "Uninstalled the video card drivers - went to the web to begin getting some cleaning tools."
 
Compconfig - On a newer system I would agree with you completely - seems like a waste to nuke right away.

But honestly - how many times have you looked at a 'normal' users PC that is 2-5 years old and said to yourself: This is immaculate..

It happens - but not that often. A reformat gives that total cleaning - AND - MOST IMPORTANTLY - opens the door for the up-sell to a SSD drive.

E.g. - "Since it is time for a reformat anyway - this is the time to upgrade your drive and breath new life into your system!"

The customer LOVES having a faster computer, with all the viruses gone, AND you get to make some money!
 
If running two scans is the point at which you surrender to your ulterior motive to upsell them on a new drive, why waste our time with it?

Get the knife into their wallet and gouge away.
 
"...opens the door for the up-sell to a SSD drive."

And disk image backup! Perhaps with the old drive in an enclosure?

The driver issue didn't make any sense to me either, as you'd stated in the OP that this only occurred on certain websites (I just wanted to get confirmation on that).

What did you find when you tried a different browser? If we've got a new Zero here, it would be nice to get more info about it.

Did the customer suspect any websites, emails, etc? I know I've be getting a ton of emailed eviction notices, WhatsApp voicemail notices, yada yada.
 
If running two scans is the point at which you surrender to your ulterior motive to upsell them on a new drive, why waste our time with it?
Click to expand...

What a silly thing to even say - I am obviously here to find out more info on this potentially annoying threat and see if anyone ran across it.

My message to CompConfig dealt with the dilemma of spending HOURS AND HOURS doing scans VS a Reformat. Never once did I say: "Two quick scans and that's it".
 
Have you done a N&P on the system?

Aside: Do you clone to SSD first, then restore to factory?
 
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