Other types of hijacks

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hagrinas Mivali
  • Start date Start date
H

Hagrinas Mivali

There doesn't seem to be anything stopping something from hijacking my
screen saver or changing my wallpaper. It's not too hard to get my screen
saver back since it's in a list of screen savers, but my wallpaper might not
be in the list of default ones. It would be nice if there were checks for
these, or if they could be reverted using MAS.
 
that's what happened to me with spysheriff (spyware in
disguise that downloaded itself through mlb.com no
less). I had to ctrl-alt-del to get the thing off my
screen (no way to cancel it). Luckily I printed a list of
tasks a few months ago and I stopped whatever looked new
and that did the trick to stop it reloading itself. I
then cleaned my machine with Adaware while the modem was
unplugged. Even then, the wallpaper-desktop buttons were
greyed out/not clickable, and I couldn't change the
desktop from spysheriff's stupid screen. Finally, I
found these steps through an obscure blog
(http://blog.christopherschultz.net/): Search for regedit
from the Start button and run it. Change the following:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersio
n\Policies\Explorer\ForceActiveDesktopOn (you'll want
this to be set to "0″ - zero).

Delete the following keys and their values:

In
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersio
n\Policies\System:
NoDispAppearancePage, Wallpaper, WallpaperStyle, and
NoDispBackgroundImage

In
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersio
n\Policies\Explorer:
NoActiveDesktopChanges

In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop:
Wallpaper, WallpaperStyle

Good luck!
 
In my case, it wasn't hard for me to fix, but not all users know their way
around very well.

The issue is whether something is truly a trojan or not, or whether the user
should care. I might not care if something is technically a trojan if it's
a de facto trojan. If something changes something on my computer without
asking me, I'm not going to like it.

I'd like to be asked (and have the ability to block a particular instance in
the future without being asked) before any software:

1. Changes my screen saver
2. Changes my wall paper
3. Adds an icon to my desktop
4. Adds itself to my quick launch toolbar
5. Adds itself to my startup (pretty much covered)
6. Tries to install itself from a disk whose primary purpose is something
else.

One example of the last that keeps hitting me lately is the Interactual
"trojan." I don't doubt that they would argue that it's not a trojan, but
if I buy a DVD that is supposedly a video, I don't want software from it
trying to install itself. That's particularly true if I hand a DVD to one of
my children, and they put it in the drive. I expect it to start the DVD
player software, not install its own. Even if it asks them before
installing, I'd still like to keep it from ever coming up. If a video is
rated G, it should be safe for me to allow my kids to put it in the DVD
drive without it having any side effects.
 
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