OK, I picked up some malware that has been redirecting my IE to some porn sites. I downloaded HijackThis! and ran my virus scan. I detected no viruses, and HijackThis! did detect a redirect. I went to my admin account on XP, ran it again, and deleted the offending function.

I rebooted the computer, but the same thing still happens. I checked everything that is loading at startup and those programs look normal. Does anyone have any ideas?

Stop using IE.

IE gets those things sometimes and they are impossible to get out. My parents computer got that one time and anytime IE would be opened, it would kill their computer pretty much...dozens of pop-ups would open and they couldn't do anything. I got Firefox for them and it worked just fine. I don't care what Microsoft says, IE sucks and nothing they do (new patches or new versions) will fix it.

I have to agree with PackerFanatic on IE and Firefox. Once I downloaded Firefox, never had an issue with hijacking or redirects or anything else. IE is crap and is just too easy of a target for people to mess with. Download Firefox, it's free, and that should get rid of the problems.

Go into safe mode and run the standard virus scans along with Adaware and SpyBot. It has placed a file somewhere that is regenerating that redirect each time you boot up. You can usually see that file with Hijack This, but sometimes HT can be hard to read.

Download MS Anti-spyware program and run it as well.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm - also install the hosts file.

There's been some good advice in this thread, my $0.02 would be to download Spybot S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html) and Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/). Both are free. Spybot is my favorite malware utility--I use the "immunize" feature and also have tea timer turned on (it lets me know when things are changing in my startup folder and makes me approve the changes). I've been using it for over a year now, no more spyware for me! Firefox is just a wonderful browser. I know there are pages it doesn't work for...some that are configured for IE only. But, using Firefox whenever I can has also helped minimize the influx of malware to my computer.

Of course, in general you'll also want a good anti-virus package. I use Norton, mostly because it's what I've always used. If you're looking for freeware for anti-virus, I'd give AVG (http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/) a look. I've never used it, but have heard good things about it.

Hope some of this helps!!!
/tk

Oh yes, one other thing--if you're using AIM, I'd consider switching to some client that doesn't include built-in ads and malware. I like Trillian 3 (www.trillian.cc), though I know others here use GAIM (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/ , look for the Windows port) and Miranda (http://www.miranda-im.org/).

/tk

Good suggestion about AIM, tk. I never thought of that...but also, instead of Spyboy, trying Microsoft's new Anti-Spyware. As much as I hate Microsoft, their new Anti-Spyware program is pretty decent, better than Spybot IMO (and I really like Spybot)

And Trillian rocks. I use it now. It is very nice.

Gaim is better than trillian in my opinion.

Gaim isn't too terrible either.

I already had Spybot up and running. I guess I need to try Adaware as that is the only thing I have yet to run. I really hate this junk.