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Q: is the appearance of cyberbrowselanding.com indicative of a virus? ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   0 Comments )
Question  
Subject: is the appearance of cyberbrowselanding.com indicative of a virus?
Category: Computers > Internet
Asked by: problems-ga
List Price: $7.00
Posted: 26 Oct 2003 10:35 PST
Expires: 25 Nov 2003 10:35 PST
Question ID: 269839
I'm wondering if my computer has a virus.  Our homepage is set at
www.cbc.ca, however, cyberbrowselanding.com appears whenever we try to
view the cbc webpage (or try to access any of its links from other
websites).  On our "internet options" tab, http://www.cbc.ca is still
our homepage.  When we attempt to access the CBC webpage, 2 browsers
open up instead of one.  One of these is the browser for
cyberbrowselanding.com, the other tells me that the page cannot be
displayed.
  Is this a virus?  How can I rid my computer of it?

Request for Question Clarification by answerguru-ga on 26 Oct 2003 10:53 PST
Just for your reference:

I wasn't able to load http://cyberbrowselanding.com by placing it in
the address bar, so I'm not sure if there is a typo in the address
you've provided. The http://www.cbc.ca loads without any problems -
have you tried typing this directly into the address bar or just by
clicking your "home" button or through other links?

answerguru-ga

Clarification of Question by problems-ga on 26 Oct 2003 11:03 PST
Sorry, the heading above the toolbar says CyberBrowse.com Landing, the
address says http://www.cbc.ca.  On the 2nd browser that opens, the
address says http://hop.clickbank.net/?bra00259/surveys2.
Answer  
Subject: Re: is the appearance of cyberbrowselanding.com indicative of a virus?
Answered By: sublime1-ga on 26 Oct 2003 12:00 PST
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
problems...

There are no less than 146 Canadian URLs being redirected to
CyberBrowse Landing, as indicated by this Google search:

cyberbrowse inurl:ca
://www.google.com/search?q=cyberbrowse+inurl%3Aca

One of them, very close to your homepage, is www.cbctv.ca
as indicated by this Google search:

cyberbrowse cbc
://www.google.com/search?q=cyberbrowse+cbc

But the fact that the www.cbc.ca URL is being redirected
to CyberBrowse makes me suspect that your 'hosts' file
has been compromised (rewritten).

See this recent answer I provided to another customer.
Take a look at the size of your 'hosts' file and, if
you're able, open it in Notepad and do a search for 
www.cbc.ca, and see if it's being associated with 
cyberbrowse or clickbank. An unmodified hosts file is
only 1kb in size:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=266094#answer

You may also benefit by downloading and running the 
following three programs which search out malicious adware,
spyware and BHOs, or Browser Helper Objects:

Ad-Aware:
http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/

Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://spybot.eon.net.au/

BHODemon:
http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm


Since this is a potentially complex problem and I don't
have hands-on access to your computer, it may take a bit
of dialog to completely resolve your problem, however,
I believe the information I've provided will do so.
Feel free to ask for any assistance you may need.

Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that  
the answer cannot be improved upon by means of a dialog  
established through the "Request for Clarification" process. 
 
A user's guide for Google Answers is on skermit-ga's site, here: 
http://www.christopherwu.net/google_answers/answer_guide.html
 
sublime1-ga
problems-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars
The help I received was thorough and timely.  As I still have much to
learn about computers, I appreciate the use of simple language! 
Thanks, sublime1!

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