How to remove goingonearth virus from windows 7 published 24th July 2011 by Steve.
Despite scanning a file I had received, without issue, I knew something was wrong within seconds of opening it. The file itself disappeared from the my folder view and my system went into a ‘Microsoft minutes’ moment. I pulled up taskmanger via right clicking on the taskbar and ended as many non-essential processes as I could identify. I tasked an on boot scan and left the machine to it.
Couple of hours later… on boot scan completed I spot immediately that that security centre is disabled and security essentials isn’t able to start – without thinking I start to google ‘starting security centre’ and find I am redirected to goingonearth.com search results (with a blank webpage).
System OS – very high level view
- Windows 7 64bit – patched up to date.
- Microsoft Security Essentials – fully updated.
- Windows firewall.
Symptoms -
- No security
- No windows updates
- No System Restore
- browser redirection to goingonearth.com
- sluggish system
Having tried various goingonearth fixes and many, many scans using goingonearth removal tools and the usual anti-malware products, each time finding that on reboot I was back to square one – with exactly the same symptoms; very frustrating.
My fix how I removed goingonearth -
- Run, with administrator privileges, Combofix. Removes an exe file from C:\Windows
- Run a full scan with Malwarebytes, which removed objects with a FakeAlert theme from the following areas -
4 – Registry Keys
1 – Registry Values
5 – Files Infected - Having rebooted, don’t be disheartened that you still have no security open services.msc and look for ‘Security Center’ – right click -> properties -> Startup type = Automatic -> Apply -> OK
- Perform an update of Microsoft Security Essentials (just download and install in situ)
- Reboot again.
By this point Robert should be your mothers brother.
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