BleepingComputer.com: Trojan.FakeAlert.Gen / Screen blacked out

Hello and thank you in advance for your help. I must say that I am a moderately skilled PC user and will need detailed instructions (sorry). I am using this site as it was awesome when I faced my last PC problem!! I run XP SP3 on my laptop; I was operating normally when I started getting dialog box messages claiming "Hard Drive not Found", and "Hard Drive Diagnostic" which wanted me to defrag the machine (I did not). I tried to close all of the dialog boxes and run a scan, but the darn thing rebooted my laptop. When the machine rebooted, my display is all black and I cannot see my icons. I ran a scan with McAfee (didn't find anything): then I ran a full scan with Malware's Anti-Malware (after updating the free version) and it found three files: 2 Trojan.FakeAlert.Gen and 1 Hijack.DisplayProperties. Malware indicated it was successful in quarantining the files (one needed a reboot to fully delete)---however, upon reboot, the fake alert was there again trying to get me to defrag the machine. A second quick scan with Malware's prduct did not find anything. I have the Malware logs if that's helpful. I can't see anything on my laptop display (except a tool bar at the bottm), so I'm writing this from a very old, and slow (256K mem) desktop that drives my wireless network. I was able to initiate Malware from the Start button (vs. using its' icon). THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH!!!! Kristy

I have the same issue today 12/6/10. Running XP SP3 and Mcafee as well. Did a full Mcafee scan, found nothing. Tried to download and hard drive diagnostic keeps stopping/blocking it with fake error/HDD messages. The PC is now off pending some direction from here.

Could Mcafee Security Center be compromised?

Randy

Ah-hah! Found it.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-hard-drive-diagnostic

Solution posted last night. I will be attempting this fix tonight.

Randy

Partially solved.

Ran the TDSSkiller and it never finds anything.

Ran the RKill multiple times, stopped a process once, but popups were still coming, so I assume it must still be running. Tried to let the popups come and run Rkill again nad it still could not stop it.

Ran MBAM and it janked out 170 infections, reboot and repeat and follw TDSSkiller and RKill with same popups. Before I ran MBAM again, I killed as many processes that i could. MCafee Security center still runs, windows index service keeps crashing and reboots.

Note: all this done with no internet conenction in hopes to kill this.

Hard drive diagnostic screen does not appear anymore, but the fake hard drive warnings and Windows-no disk errors still keep coming.

I think I may have a second infection, will research some more and see what I find.

Randy

Please post the MBAM log so we can see the infections.
Reboot into Safe Mode with Networking
How to enter safe mode(XP)
Using the F8 Method
Restart your computer.
When the machine first starts again it will generally list some equipment that is installed in your machine, amount of memory, hard drives installed etc. At this point you should gently tap the F8 key repeatedly until you are presented with a Windows XP Advanced Options menu.
Select the option for Safe Mode with Networking using the arrow keys.
Then press enter on your keyboard to boot into Safe Mode.


>>>> Download this file and doubleclick on it to run it. Allow the information to be merged with the registry.

RKill....

Download and Run RKill

Please download RKill by Grinler from one of the 4 links below and save it to your desktop.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4



• Before we begin, you should disable your anti-malware softwares you have installed so they do not interfere RKill running as some anti-malware softwares detect RKill as malicious. Please refer to this page if you are not sure how.
  
  
• Double-click on Rkill on your desktop to run it. (If you are using Windows Vista, please right-click on it and select Run As Administrator)
  
  
• A black screen will appear and then disappear. Please do not worry, that is normal. This means that the tool has been successfully executed.
  
  
• If nothing happens or if the tool does not run, please let me know in your next reply

Do not reboot your computer after running rkill as the malware programs will start again. Or if rebooting is required run it again.


If you continue having problems running rkill.com, you can download iExplore.exe or eXplorer.exe, which are renamed copies of rkill.com, and try them instead.



Next run Superantisypware (SAS):

Download and scan with SUPERAntiSpyware Free for Home Users

• Double-click SUPERAntiSpyware.exe and use the default settings for installation.
  
• An icon will be created on your desktop. Double-click that icon to launch the program.
  
• If asked to update the program definitions, click "Yes". If not, update the definitions before scanning by selecting "Check for Updates". (If you encounter any problems while downloading the updates, manually download them from here. Double-click on the hyperlink for Download Installer and save SASDEFINITIONS.EXE to your desktop. Then double-click on SASDEFINITIONS.EXE to install the definitions.)
  
• In the Main Menu, click the Preferences... button.
  
• Click the Scanning Control tab.
  
• Under Scanner Options make sure the following are checked (leave all others unchecked):
  • Close browsers before scanning.
    
  • Scan for tracking cookies.
    
  • Terminate memory threats before quarantining.
• Click the "Close" button to leave the control center screen.
  
• Back on the main screen, under "Scan for Harmful Software" click Scan your computer.
  
• On the left, make sure you check C:\Fixed Drive.
  
• On the right, under "Complete Scan", choose Perform Complete Scan.
  
• Click "Next" to start the scan. Please be patient while it scans your computer.
  
• After the scan is complete, a Scan Summary box will appear with potentially harmful items that were detected. Click "OK".
  
• Make sure everything has a checkmark next to it and click "Next".
  
• A notification will appear that "Quarantine and Removal is Complete". Click "OK" and then click the "Finish" button to return to the main menu.
  
• If asked if you want to reboot, click "Yes".
  
• To retrieve the removal information after reboot, launch SUPERAntispyware again.
  • Click Preferences, then click the Statistics/Logs tab.
    
  • Under Scanner Logs, double-click SUPERAntiSpyware Scan Log.
    
  • If there are several logs, click the current dated log and press View log. A text file will open in your default text editor.
    
  • Please copy and paste the Scan Log results in your next reply.
• Click Close to exit the program.

If you have a problem downloading, installing or getting SAS to run, try downloading and using the SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner instead. Save the randomly named file (i.e. SAS_1710895.COM) to a usb drive or CD and transfer to the infected computer. Then double-click on it to launch and scan. The file is randomly named to help keep malware from blocking the scanner.


Rerun MBAM (MalwareBytes) like this:

Open MBAM in normal mode and click Update tab, select Check for Updates,when done
click Scanner tab,select Quick scan and scan (normal mode).
After scan click Remove Selected, Post new scan log and Reboot into normal mode.

Please ask any needed questions,post Old and new MBAM + SAS logs and let us know how the PC is running now.