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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Jack Schofield

Safetyhomepage hijacker not safe for Windows

My Internet Explorer homepage has been taken over by safetyhomepage.com and I am being bombarded by pop ups for spyware and adult sites. I have McAfee and have run Spybot and AdAware without it being detected. Mark Perry

It sounds like a simple home-page hijacker but seems to be a new variant of SmitFraud. This is a dangerous Trojan that modifies the Windows registry and can download more programs in the background. It can also reinstall itself when you reboot your PC, making it hard to remove.

One approach is to use an online forum, where you post a file created with HiJackThis and someone walks you through the process. For an example of someone removing safetyhomepage.com successfully, see the TechGuy forum.

Other good malware removal forums include Spywareinfo, CastleCops, TomCoyote and MajorGeeks.

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