Malware attacking composer

[Harrell Signs Inc.]

Two weeks ago I got bogus Windows Defender warnings of "suspicious activity" asking me to click on icon to go to a site to learn how to remove malware or virus.
I run Composer all day, when I went to close it, the warning appeared, I ignored it. The next day the Composer shortcut icon was gone and the program inoperable. I reloaded the software, worked all day and when I went to shut down, the same thing happened - the warning appeared, I closed everything out. Next day Composer was gone. I downloaded Malware Bytes Anti Malware program and scanned my PC. It found nothing. I downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials and scanned. It found 3 things and said it eliminated 1 and quarantined 2.
I then tried to install the Omega software. While its loading I get a warning from MS Security Essentials," Detected threats are being cleaned"​. Omega completes installing but there is no Composer. I've purchased Exterminate It malware removal program. It initially found some things it eliminated but still, every time I try to install Omega I get the Microsoft warning and Composer cannot install or operate. Anyone experienced this ?

 

[phototec]

Whenever you get these bogus Windows Defender warnings of "suspicious activity" asking me to click on icon to go to a site to learn how to remove malware or virus.

DO NOT click on anything, just do a Ctrl Alt Delete (all at the same time), then in the Task Manager you will see the item listed and select END TASK. That way it will not cause problems on your computer.

If you select any button on the bogus Windows Defender warning, you will be in trouble (like what you are going through now).

 

[Harrell Signs Inc.]

I never clicked on the button on the warnings. I have gone in to the "processes" section of Task Manager and see 3 processes running which are
unidentified and have no description. When I've tried to end them a pop-up message reads "Access Denied"

 

[Billct2]

Can you search for any new installed programs and get the names?
Then do a search to see how to kill them.

 

[player]

I would try to remove it with SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes.

 

[Andriy]

You could always try to restore it about a week or two ago and see if that works.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Composer might share some part of a code signature which appears to be malware.
If you are confident that Composer is clean, open Defender and add the folder where it is installed to the excluded folder list and Defender will leave it alone.

 

[jimmysigns]

download- combofix, its cleans everything! 2 of my computers were royally screwed, my tech guy downloaded it and it cleaned everything up, like new. it's amazing.

 

[player]

Note: Combofix is not for Win8 or Win10.

http://www.combofix.org/

 

[Zendavor Signs]

Two weeks ago I got bogus Windows Defender warnings of "suspicious activity" asking me to click on icon to go to a site to learn how to remove malware or virus.
I run Composer all day, when I went to close it, the warning appeared, I ignored it. The next day the Composer shortcut icon was gone and the program inoperable. I reloaded the software, worked all day and when I went to shut down, the same thing happened - the warning appeared, I closed everything out. Next day Composer was gone. I downloaded Malware Bytes Anti Malware program and scanned my PC. It found nothing. I downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials and scanned. It found 3 things and said it eliminated 1 and quarantined 2.
I then tried to install the Omega software. While its loading I get a warning from MS Security Essentials," Detected threats are being cleaned"​. Omega completes installing but there is no Composer. I've purchased Exterminate It malware removal program. It initially found some things it eliminated but still, every time I try to install Omega I get the Microsoft warning and Composer cannot install or operate. Anyone experienced this ?

I'm pretty tech savvy, but I've never had very good luck with anti virus programs and removing viruses. I believe anti virus programs just add more headache. I use common sense and rarely have problems. I have set up our systems here so all critical stuff is on the server, so when a problem comes up, I wipe the computer clean and reinstall. Yes, reinstalling takes a bit longer, but far less than the hassle of av programs. Reinstalling windows would be ideal, or take it to a professional to have cleaned.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I'm pretty tech savvy, but I've never had very good luck with anti virus programs and removing viruses. I believe anti virus programs just add more headache. I use common sense and rarely have problems. I have set up our systems here so all critical stuff is on the server, so when a problem comes up, I wipe the computer clean and reinstall. Yes, reinstalling takes a bit longer, but far less than the hassle of av programs. Reinstalling windows would be ideal, or take it to a professional to have cleaned.

The one thing that you might have to worry about if your computer has access to the server as well as to the internet that someone gets something on the server that encrypts all the files. I believe that has happened to a user on here not that long ago.

Of course, you could have "typhoid mary" program on there and not realize it.

Gotta love tech. More and more, I'm glad my main OS is based off the Linux kernel. A lot more ways to isolate issues, if they were to happen (and there was a scare back in the summer that even got some Linux people a little concerned until a new update for FF and Chrome happened).

 

[Techman]

In our modern days a complete OS reinstall is almost never the best answer. It is not needed in 99% of all cases. At one time I would guarantee a computer repair or it was free for anything but a hardware failure.

There is no dirt on a computer hard drive. Maleware is nothing more than some code. Break just one small segment makes that code is useless. Any competent computer geek can break bad code at will. Once that code is broken the OS will eventually use that storage space for something else.

In the old days a machine would get sluggish. People would do a wipe and reinstall and have a fast machine again. That started the old wipe and reinstall answer for a "dirty" machine. Today the geeks clean the temp folders and charge big bucks.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

. Today the geeks clean the temp folders and charge big bucks.

Some temp files are either deleted automatically when you close out programs or when you do a restart. But again, it depends on the temp file. Some programs, like Audition, you have to click an option for it to delete the temp files that it generates. And those files can be huge.

Clearing out your browser info can also do worlds of good.

Log files though can be pretty big (for windows that would be "queued error reporting" both for users and for systems). Deleting restore points and shadow copies of backup images as well. Those have always been bigger then temp files for cleanup in my experience.

In Windows, there is a disk cleanup utility when you right click on the hard drive and click on properties and whenever I do that every couple of weeks, I usually free up anywhere from 500MB to a couple of GBs and since I only use Windows as a VM, that's still a lot of junk that's retained for using it only Adobe and Wilcom and whatever background processes that Window's uses to run the OS.

Some programs also create backup copies that are saved within the program's folders and not with the original file (like if you were to store the original file on a NAS etc). Then, of course, they might have their own log files, restore files (if there was a sudden shutdown/aborting of the program/OS).

 

[visual800]

first thing to do is cut all that microsoft defender and security bs off! download hijackthis and run it. look thru what it finds and delete it. next download ccleaner and run it, go to the strart up section and see if anything strange is in there, and then use it to clean registry.....and once again cut all the microsoft crap off!

 

[phototec]

Some temp files are either deleted automatically when you close out programs or when you do a restart. But again, it depends on the temp file. Some programs, like Audition, you have to click an option for it to delete the temp files that it generates. And those files can be huge.

Clearing out your browser info can also do worlds of good.

Log files though can be pretty big (for windows that would be "queued error reporting" both for users and for systems). Deleting restore points and shadow copies of backup images as well. Those have always been bigger then temp files for cleanup in my experience.

In Windows, there is a disk cleanup utility when you right click on the hard drive and click on properties and whenever I do that every couple of weeks, I usually free up anywhere from 500MB to a couple of GBs and since I only use Windows as a VM, that's still a lot of junk that's retained for using it only Adobe and Wilcom and whatever background processes that Window's uses to run the OS.

Some programs also create backup copies that are saved within the program's folders and not with the original file (like if you were to store the original file on a NAS etc). Then, of course, they might have their own log files, restore files (if there was a sudden shutdown/aborting of the program/OS).

Windows 7, when I right click on the hard drive I don't see an option for disk cleanup, do you mean defrag?

Never mind, I see it in the lower right corner....Thanks for the info....

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Windows 7, when I right click on the hard drive I don't see an option for disk cleanup, do you mean defrag?

Never mind, I see it in the lower right corner....Thanks for the info....

Yep, right here.

 

[visual800]

ccleaner does a lot better job than windows does of cleaning that hard drive. also windows defrag sucks, ccleaner makes nother program called defraggler

 

[WildWestDesigns]

ccleaner does a lot better job than windows does of cleaning that hard drive. also windows defrag sucks, ccleaner makes nother program called defraggler

The free version of CCleaner will not clear out the logs (I would suspect the pay ones would, but I don't know). Unless this has changed with an update. It does do a good job of clearing out everything else (I was using it daily when I had Win installed directly on my hardware).

If you are running a SSD, you do not want to defrag. It's unnecessary and it causes needless writes on an SSD.