Computer Help

A

Andy

(:
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
763
Age
33
Location
Illinois
Black Thorn
I don't really know where to put this, but I'm in need of some serious computer help...

At random times during the day, there are warnings of hackers trying to get in our computer, but they're blocked. I've tried everything, but I can't seem to get them to go away. My firewall settings are set to the highest, so I can't really do anything with my firewall.

Like, 10 minutes ago, there was this warning saying to shut down my computer because of some damage or something, and I don't know if they're connected or not.

If anyone knows what's wrong with it, or how I can manage to fix it, any help will be appreciated.
 
Do you have any indication where the popups are originating from? Is it just a windows popup, or is it a link? Do they only popup when your browser is open? Do you see anything running under applications when you ctrl-alt-del for your task manager? If you right-click the popup will it say anything under properties as to where it's coming from? Can you copy the warnings down, and post them here? What do you use for anti-virus? Do you run any other security apps? If this problem is recent, have you installed a new security app recently? Firewall, anti-virus, spyware blocker, anything like that?

If they're only telling you attacks are blocked that just sounds like a firewall warning, but if it's telling you to turn off your computer that sounds different. What firewall do you use? Is it one of those all in one kinds of things?
 
They're not really popups, but more of security warnings from AOL, which is the firewall program I use. It's crap, but it works. I also have McAfee, but it's not loaded on our computer just yet. The popup just says "We have blocked *insert ip address* from entering your computer." Or something similar to that. For anti-virus, I have McAfee and we got it a few weeks ago. And for other security apps, if you mean other programs, then I have spybot search and destroy. Until we installed McAfee, we used to get a ton of those a day, but viruses were causing a lot of the problem, and now it isn't as many.

This problem has been here for over a month, but it never really bugged me until recently.

It wasn't a firewall warning to turn it off, it was this blue screen that came from the system. It said to 'shut it down and restart' so I did. The AOL program we have is an 'all in one' thing, but I only use the firewall.
 
Yuck. AOL. The only thing I know about AOL is not to use it. Is the instruction to reboot coming from the same place the blocked warnings are coming from? Do they look the same? Did the "block" warnings start appearing with your AOL firewall, or was it updated recently?

Personally I'd be real cautious about rebooting based on a warning. Malware can install that way. I'd definitely want to know who exactly was telling me to reboot, and why.

On most firewalls you can turn "block" warnings off. Is their any way to access your AOL firewall settings and do that. Just out of curiousity is it possible to turn your AOL firewall off?
 
I dislike AOL. To the biggest extent. I just don't want to install the Mcafee firewall, which is better. I leave that kind of thing for my mom to do, only because I mess up something when I install things.

The thing that says to 'reboot' stopped my computer, and then the entire screen was blue and had the instructions for what to do. I've gotten that kind of warning before, and I couldn't get out of it. It just said something like 'there is something damaging your computer, to get rid of it shut down your computer and restart now'.

I never really tried turning the warnings off, because I'd probably turn the entire firewall off and I don't want to do that until McAfee is installed.
 
Oh yeah, OK that's something different. That's a Windows blue screen. That's not necessarily anything malicious. It's most likely just a crash. What operating system do use? I'm guessing it's not XP.

On those "block" warnings, I don't know. I checked out the AOL FAQs here.

http://help.channels.aol.com/kjump.adp?articleId=220688

They seem to be saying you only get warnings when a new program wants to access the internet. It does tell you how to access your settings there. You should check it out, and see if there's a way to turn other warnings off.

Edit

A firewall can tell you what's going out from your computer, and what's coming in from the internet. It can block either way. You want to know what it's blocking going out. For example if you want your Macaffe to automatic update. You want to tell your firewall to let that happen. On the other hand if somthing you've never heard of wants to access the internet, you want to Google that, and find out what it is before you let it out. It could be malware, which is bad. You would tell your firewall to block that, then try to clean it.

On the other hand if something is trying to break in, well, that happens every day, all day. Your firewall is supposed to be able to handle that without your help. You don't need those warnings. So if those are the kinds of warnings you're getting you don't need those. If you can turn those off, I'd say go ahead.

With the outgoing warnings though, there should be an option on the popup asking if you want to allow it access to the internet, and another one asking if you want it to allow the app to access the internet again in the future. If it is something like Macafee wanting to update your virus definitions, then there shouldn't be a problem with that so you could just allow it to update whenever it wants, and never receive another warning. If you're on dialup though your internet connection will slow down while you're updating. If you want you can go into Macaffee and turn automatic updates off, then go to the update site, and update manually. You need frequent updates though.

Your blue screen crash is something else. That can be caused by so many things. Are they frequent?
 
Oooh I know what that is now. My sister calls that the 'blue screen of death'. I figured it was a crash, but my computer is so @#$%ed up right now, I didn't really know. I have Windows XP.

I know about the accessing the internet thing, and it's not that. This is what i'm talking about. I blocked some things out.
 
That warning appears to be a simple notification from your firewall telling you it has done it's job, and blocked an attack. On my firewall I turn those off. Can you do that with yours?
 
Hm...I don't think I can without turning off the firewall entirely. I'll have my mom install McAfee sometime. I find it interesting that whenever I'm here, I get those popups rarely, unless I just left Myspace.

Thanks for the help! 😀
 
I had this problem a few months back and it was a virus that had gotten in my hard drive. The program became embedded in my windows files. Maybe this is the same thing that you have. The only way that we got rid of it was to have a friend of ours come over and reformat our computer. For some crazy reason it came from a download that appeared safe, task bars started scrolling up top and my virus control kept saying that we had a trojan but when we scanned our hard drive and files, nothing showed up. It was very annoying.
 
Did the firewall style alerts look like the ones Andy posted?

If you want to check that out Andy you can try an online virus scan. You might pick it up when you install Macafee also.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

I think you need Internet Explorer to use the online one.
 
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