My hard drive has been infected by Conduit

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  1. Posts : 114
    Windows 7 Home Premium
       #1

    My hard drive has been infected by Conduit


    My hard drive is infected with Conduit. It is so powerful that after I turned a post into a Word document with the top line reading "How to Remove Conduit" (no quotation marks), when I pressed "Save As" the file was saved as "How to Remove". Fortunately it "allowed me" to rename the file "How to Remove Conduit". I've tried three apparently logical removal suggestions that I googled and they have all been thwarted. I have been able to get rid of the Conduit toolbar and Search Engine on my own, but this one is way out of my class!

    IT'S OVER FOR ME. The clue to use Adwcleaner, a program whose existence was unknown to me, got the major work done and, with administrator privileges and some thought (not to mention backups), conduit has been expunged from my Registry and my Hard Drives.
    Last edited by GerryR; 08 Sep 2013 at 00:35. Reason: With help from other members I have a greeat new program and I have obliterated conduit, both from my registry and my HDs.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 1,045
    Win8/8.1,Win7-U64, Vista U64, uncounted Linux distor's
       #2

    Conduit toolbar is a adware-malware program that should be easy to remove. I'm sure one of our anti virus experts well post soon on the best program to use. MBAM or SASW should detect it. A google search well give you plenty of info.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 2,470
    Windows 7 Home Premium
       #3

    GerryR,

    Please follow this guide:

    Remove Conduit Toolbar and search.conduit.com (Uninstall Guide)

    Go up to and include running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware


    Please post the AdwCleaner report in your reply.


    When you are done running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, a report opens in Notepad.
    Please copy/paste the entire contents of the MBAM report in your reply.

    Will take a look at those and see what we need to do next.


    Thanks!
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 114
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #4

    I've run MBAM and SASW Pro. Also Kaspersky. They all came up empty. I got rid of the toolbar and search engine without taking a deep breath. But getting it off of the hard drive is a totally different can of worms. Even when I signed on a administrator, I couldn't even Conduit's PNG files - I got "error messages" to the effect that I could not enter those files. It protects PNG files from the administrator!! That's one very stubborn infection.

    Unfortunately, after I first backed up my Registry and my system to an external HDD and I went into the Registry. I started with Find Conduit and continued with Find Nexts. The scroll bar had moved about one quarter of the way down when I reached the fiftieth occurrence of Conduit. If that trend continued that would give me 200 occurrences. I backed out. Revo Uninstaller Pro's forced install found Conduit, but then offered me those choices to make in the Registry. There was no way I was going to make that many Registry decisions. I know my limits, and I don't think that there are a lot of people who could make those two hundred decisions correctly. I'm certainly not one of them - nobody I know is either and I'm friends with a lot of highly competent developers. I offered to let them take control of my computer and they all declined.

    I hope that there's some super-developer out there who can write a program that will eliminate Conduit.

    I'm just a mathematician - not a developer. I can write tutorials for friends, but Conduit is out of my class. It doesn't appear to be doing anything so I suspect it's spyware. I certainly hope it can't break my super-strong passwords to important folders. Fortunately my passwords to Internet connection are on a backed-up flash drive. They appear nowhere on my hard drive. I doubt that even Conduit can get information from flash drives that are on my computer table.

    Any help will certainly be appreciated.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 114
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #5

    cottonball said:
    GerryR,

    Please follow this guide:

    Remove Conduit Toolbar and search.conduit.com (Uninstall Guide)

    Go up to and include running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware


    Please post the AdwCleaner report in your reply.


    When you are done running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, a report opens in Notepad.
    Please copy/paste the entire contents of the MBAM report in your reply.

    Will take a look at those and see what we need to do next.


    Thanks!
    MBAM comes up empty. 0 incidents of malware. SuperAntiSpyware Pro also comes up empty. So does Kaspersky Anti-Virus. So does Revo Uninstaller Free. This is certainly malware, but while you can see it, helpful programs cannot.

    Thanks a lot for your time, but I've already done what other people are suggesting. If they had worked I would not have posted the question. Google turns up many suggestions but they are only appropriate for run-of-the-mill malware and I can take care of that. BTW this came down when I decided to open IE10 the first time. There was a flood of garbage, flashing ads, toolbars, default search engines and what not. By the time I had loaded an arsenal to take care of that, but because it had infected Firefox (my default) browser, I won't be using IE10. I should have known better than to use IEx. I'll just stick to Firefox and Chrome. I had wanted IE10 for easier access to Windows Updates- never again!

    Anyway, I appreciate your time spent and your suggestions but Conduit is beyond them.

    Gerry
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       #6

    GerryR said:
    cottonball said:
    GerryR,

    Please follow this guide:

    Remove Conduit Toolbar and search.conduit.com (Uninstall Guide)

    Go up to and include running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware


    Please post the AdwCleaner report in your reply.


    When you are done running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, a report opens in Notepad.
    Please copy/paste the entire contents of the MBAM report in your reply.

    Will take a look at those and see what we need to do next.


    Thanks!
    I should have known better than to use IEx./ I had wanted IE10 for easier access to Windows Updates
    I'm not sure what this even means,
    What is IEx ?
    Clean boot post screen shots of the Startup and Services sections,
    https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/179159-troubleshoot-application-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html
    Why would ie10 make it "easier access to windows updates"
    Where exactly did you download ie10 ?
    Because conduit certainly does not come with it,
    If you got all sorts of popups when you opened ie10 it's because your machine already had Conduit installed possibly from Chrome but also could of come from Firefox without you knowing,
    I leaning to Chrome because many of it's resources are on their servers so something downloading Without your knowledge is more than likely,
    Check your Extensions in Chrome browser.
    Look for items you don't recognize,
    Attachment 285036
    Last edited by ThrashZone; 22 Feb 2015 at 19:55.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 4,161
    Windows 7 Pro-x64
       #7

    Run SFC /scannow just to make sure the OS files and registry entries are intact. Take note that it may be necessary to run it several times if you keep getting error messages on the console.

    Have you tried running Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool? Conduit is not on the list but it may be named something else with the same signature.

    Here's the link: Families Cleaned by the Malicious Software Removal Tool
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 4,161
    Windows 7 Pro-x64
       #8

    Holly cow! You sure like the tool bars don't ya. :)
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 114
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #9

    Thank you note


    Thanks a lot for your work done so far and work that you will have ahead of you.

    Also thanks for apprising me of the existence of AdwCleaner.

    GerryR
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 172
    W7 Ultimate 32-bit
       #10

    This is why about 37 minutes ago, the same time you were making your last post, I went very slow when installing SUPER © Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Recorder [update] because since day one they used adware to make it free.
    Step by step I was going "Decline" , "Decline" and yes, Conduit was there, always choose custom.
    It is great, powerful and on Brink's list, you just have to be wary. When you rush...you make mistakes.
      My Computer


 
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