win7 couldn't boot because of PUP.Optional.Goobzo?

erdos · 12 Aug 2016

hi, my win7 64 bit machine had been acting weird this week. initially it started with randomly freeze, then it refused to boot,only giving me blank screen.

i booted into safe mode and ran both MS forefront and Malwarebytes, forefront didn't detect anything unusual, while Malwarebytes reports detecting 'PUP.Optional.Goobzo', i removed it and rebooted, everything seems fine.

does this 'Goobzo' cause random freeze and prevent windows from normal booting? or there's something else deeper wrong with my pc?

mitchell65 · 12 Aug 2016

You may like to read this which gives a goodexplanation for this PUP.Optional.Goobzo Trojan:
PUP.Optional.Goobzo - Virus Lists and Removal Steps
So the short answer to your question is "Yes"
If you Google MS Forefront you will see that it is basically obsolete. What anti virus software are you running?

RoasterMen · 12 Aug 2016

Because Goobzo is an adware, definitely yes. It hijacks your main homepage and changes your homepage from your default to Goobzo's which isn't safe to use because while you're getting the info you want the virus is already collecting your data. Nothing's wrong with your PC now except for that.

erdos · 12 Aug 2016

mitchell65 said:

You may like to read this which gives a goodexplanation for this PUP.Optional.Goobzo Trojan:
PUP.Optional.Goobzo - Virus Lists and Removal Steps
So the short answer to your question is "Yes"
If you Google MS Forefront you will see that it is basically obsolete. What anti virus software are you running?

thanks for the reply!

i ran Malwarebytes first in normal boot mode and it didn't detect 'Goobzo', then after a few random freezes and hard resets, i couldn't boot into normal mode anymore.

I normally log into win7 machine with a user account without admin privilege to prevent virus/malware making changes to the OS. but the malware still manages slipping through.

Forefront is the only anti virus i use on this machine, to keep the AV software footprint at minimum...other AV softwares consume too much memory since my machine has limited RAM (2GB)

mitchell65 · 12 Aug 2016

erdos said:

I normally log into win7 machine with a user account without admin privilege to prevent virus/malware making changes to the OS. but the malware still manages slipping through.

Forefront is the only anti virus i use on this machine, to keep the AV software footprint at minimum...other AV softwares consume too much memory since my machine has limited RAM (2GB)

Logging in to a standard user account will make no difference to the chances of collecting viruses etc! I think you are taking an unnecessary risk with your choice of a/v. Plenty of users on this Forum have 2GB RAM and use a "better" a/v program than MS Forefront. I would recommend you go to at least Windows Security essentials but of course, the choice is yours!