firefox take over

djggra15

Trainz Crew Member
I have a problem and lost all my work . started pc yesterday and it went strait to chkdsk and dumped most of my files from trainz2012 tried to restore no way eventfully found out firefox had been taken over by a site called fiddlers I have reset firefox and tried to restore my work to no avail even though it is archived it still misses a lot of content any one go any ideas. I run windows7 64 bit with asrock m.b am6 pross. 8gb ddr3 ram hd7500 graphic
 
I have a problem and lost all my work . started pc yesterday and it went strait to chkdsk and dumped most of my files from trainz2012 tried to restore no way eventfully found out firefox had been taken over by a site called fiddlers I have reset firefox and tried to restore my work to no avail even though it is archived it still misses a lot of content any one go any ideas. I run windows7 64 bit with asrock m.b am6 pross. 8gb ddr3 ram hd7500 graphic

You really need to tell us what the repaired TS12 folder looks like. Usually chkdsk doesn't dump anything. What can't be restored is placed in a folder in the root c directory.

Also one of the first 5 of the Trainz 10 commandments is to backup your TS12 folder, or at least TS12/userdata.

Finally, you should have protection software for the fiddler problem. Please use periods when you reply.
 
That hack name doesn't make sense. Fiddler is a debugging program for watching web traffic. http://www.telerik.com/fiddler Please copy the text and/or paste screen captures here and we can help you with that issue, hopefully. While working as an IT support technician, I had a 95% success rate in removing malware by following various procedures.

When you have to run a chkdsk, this is usually a sign that your computer wasn't turned off properly and Windows didn't close down programs the proper way. In general we try to avoid doing that, however, there are cases when we have no choice but to exit abruptly causing the chkdsk process to kick in. Other times, if you did not invoke a chkdsk (running it from system tools, the command prompt, or reset your system, then this is a sign of hard drive problems that have been detected.

A chkdsk will take your data and hopefully recover the bits and pieces it can find in the Master File Table or MFT, and link the file bits together. If it can't recover the data, it will, as deneban said, put stuff in the root of the C:\drive, or any drive that chkdsk was run on. these have the name file0000.chk, file0001.chk, etc. as they are numbered sequentially. In some cases there are folders that contain data. These are the recovered folders and are named similarly. There is a problem, however, it can be difficult finding which files belong where, especially with Trainz TS12, or any version of Trainz for that matter.

As has been suggested, your best defense against data corruption such as this is to have offline backups whether this is on a thumb drive or an external hard drive. A drive is recommended due to space and speed as thumb drives are slower and usually smaller.

John
 
In reply system was shut down properly , I am at the moment trying to recover my assets , I have been able to reinstall assets from my external hard drive but a lot are still showing as white lines . as for my antivirus and malware it has picket nothing up , I run Microsoft security essentials totally up to date, I have also switched from Firefox to ie11 an open GL till I find the problem. I will keep updating as I progress as I am no it expert . danny
 
I would suggest you also try the free version of MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Quite a few security websites (from what I've read) as well as Microsoft themselves have said that Security Essentials only provides baseline protection.

Shane
 
Shane's right about that. And MalwareBytes Anti-Malware now also protects against rootkits, although you have to turn that on in "Settings" as it is not on by default. The free version is quite sufficient for most people, although the full version gives full background protection and automatic updates.
 
If you did a proper shutdown and still received a chkdsk, I highly recommend backing all your data up and consider replacing your hard drive. This is usually indicative of a failing drive.

I agree too with Shane the others. Definitely run something such as Malwarebytes, which is highly recommended. Any antivirus can become immune to what's installed on your system and not see all the threats. The best practice, whether you are using MSE, Norton AV, Trend, Vipre, etc., is to run an outside scanner often. These provide a second look and usually catch things that your installed antivirus cannot always catch.

The white lines are caused by broken or missing spline assets.

Once you're restored all your data, I highly recommend running a database repair and then check your faulty assets.

John
 
Also, switching to Internet Explorer will NOT improve your internet security. If you're really against Firefox (which in my opinion is the best browser both for speed & security) try Chrome, Opera or Safari.
 
If you are interested in browser security, etc. take a look at this here:

http://internet-browser-review.toptenreviews.com/

Interesting that IE isn't as half bad as we think compared to Firefox which is rated pretty high.

The vector, your infection route, may have come in through your browser, however, keep in mind that these are script-based attacks that will work across all OS platforms and all browsers that support JavaScript and AJAX specifically. This would mean all modern browsers as that is required for most multimedia operation on the web today. Your best line of defense is to be careful when browsing by not clicking on every link, and specifically not clicking on the first URL you see in a search results. The malware are writers are using a bit of social engineering as they create redirects, which also have high rankings due to bots, that appear on the top-most portion of the search results. They figure that most people will go for the first hit. If you need to go to the top-most searches, type in the URL for the search rather than clicking on it. By typing in the search, you are bypassing the redirected link and going to the proper location.

John
 
I would suggest you also try the free version of MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Quite a few security websites (from what I've read) as well as Microsoft themselves have said that Security Essentials only provides baseline protection.

Shane did as you advised downloaded malwarebytes ran and found 97 problems all sorted thank you very much will now try to rebuild danny
 
Shane did as you advised downloaded malwarebytes ran and found 97 problems all sorted thank you very much will now try to rebuild danny

Don't take that 97 to the bank, that software tends to exaggerate on first install to make a good impression for purchase. Nevertheless you can see the importance of protection software.
 
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No problem. Hopefully the rebuild goes OK.

Shane
Shane took 2 weeks but i seem to have everything back now just a few assets still showing as red also using chrome now . it took a few goes at uploading cmp files to get everything back. I did a full re install after formatting drive , i also back up every night now just in case . I still do not know what caused the files to dump it was only my trainz files that was dumped .I know flash player is trying to update on my pc but i have blocked it . will see how it goes Danny. ps thanks all for your help
 
That's what happened last time my system did a disk check - it could well be what the system was processing at the time of the problem.

Shane
 
Sometimes strange stuff happens that makes you think it is malware or a virus when actually it could be a hard drive or memory problem.
I just went through something similar. I found that one of my hard drives was dying. I only recently finished getting most of my system back to normal.
It's a good idea to periodically check the Event Viewer in windows and check for problems. Quite often that will point you in the right direction.
 
I use AVG free edition which is same as the paid edition but for home users with some minor de activated items also have spybot as well as the microsoft stuff enabled in win8.1 but in truth the only way to be 100% safe is never to get online or have your computer even hooked to the internet and to never run discs that have been in another computer.

Having said that and hearing all the instant reactions of what good is that, I add that with my system and the other computers all networked here we have in last 6 years never had any trouble as our systems all find these things and stop them activating.

It wont be a problem withh firefox that caused the issue as i run it only never use IE except where it is forced on me like microsoft sites. but a good backup is essential even daily is not enoughh if you spend hours working on stuff JUST incase you get some virus. Also any external hard drive attached to a computer will likely have the virus on it as well. There was a clasic one some years back that you could wipe out only by crashing your computer on purpose as when your computer was started the first thing it would do is load itself into the RAM memory so even if you wiped it off the hard drive as you shut down the computer it would again install itself from the RAM as part of a controlled system shut down and when you the restarted the computer it was still present there is now a better way to deal with this type of virus but it took years to develop.

The best advice is to be aware take all the actions possible to prevent problems and be prepared incase it all falls in a heap!
 
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