I Did Something Stupid

[the tourist]

...and now I need help.

So, I was messaging an old friend (or who I thought was an old friend), and they were going to send me an mp3 of their band over messanger. So they did and I downloaded it from them. But then after I opened it, a message popped up like the ones do on vista when you're opening a new program. That safety screen where it asks if you really want to open it and I hit allow. My anti-virus/anti-spyware said low-risk, though, so I thought it was okay. But I thought that was weird, so I looked at the file I was sent and it was an exe file. So I asked this 'friend' what that was all about, and they said they weren't the person I thought they were; they just got into that im. And that my computer was now infected and would be infected forever with their virus. So I deleted the file they sent and then just performed a system restore to a little less than 24 hours before this happened. I haven't logged back onto that computer since I did the system restore because I'm worried that this person might still have access. Is there anything I can do to confirm that the system restore stopped their virus/access?

 

[Galeongirl]

Login to safe mode and see what happens? Run a virus scan if you can after that.

 

[Liesje]

Download MalwareBytes, update it, reboot, boot into Safe Mode, run a full scan with MalwareBytes. That often takes care of the majority. System restore was a good idea too, that probably worked.

 

[Just_Boy]

I don't it's that serious. Just run a scan.

A scan in Safe Mode should eliminate all infections. But if the it continues to run its processes and services even in Safe Mode and the anti-malware is not effective enough to end the task of the malicious processes, the removal may fail. The antivirus may remove some infections only and the malware will load itself again or download additional malware onto the system when a network connection is found

But that's rare and I don't think you need to worry.

 

[the tourist]

Well, I ran my normal protection in safe mode. It came up with nothing. Then I downloaded the malwarebytes as Liesje suggested. Did a full scan with that in safe mode and it also found nothing. Still nervous about it, though. Like... worried with regard to online banking, etc.

 

[Just_Boy]

Do a native boot scan.

 

[Galeongirl]

If Malwarebytes in safe mode didn't find anything, then I guess you got pranked by your friend.

 

[Liesje]

Well, I ran my normal protection in safe mode. It came up with nothing. Then I downloaded the malwarebytes as Liesje suggested. Did a full scan with that in safe mode and it also found nothing. Still nervous about it, though. Like... worried with regard to online banking, etc.

But you had already done the system restore, no? Then it's probably fine if it was not a very sophisticated virus. Usually there's just a few .exe files burried in some hidden temp folder. I removed viruses every day for work. Some are far more complex, wouldn't really be able to explain online and can take several hours.

You could reset your browsers (clear cache, temp files, etc) and change your passwords.