Malware Aftermath -- IE/Chrome disabled?

[Smellincoffee]

Late last night, a bit of malware that got into the computer through my visit to a lyrics site (I think) installed one of those bogus security programs. It's one of those semi-effective ones that insists all programs are infected, including the Task Manager and Spybot S&D that could get rid of it. I'm not too bothered. I've done this before: I restart, load Task Manager before the malware starts, and then end any foreign processes. I then start Spybot, which finds a couple of pieces of malware (SysFraud and something else) in addition to the usual tracking cookies. It clears everything up, and I decide to reinstall Malwarebytes to catch anything Spybot S&D didn't.

Odd thing is, Chrome won't access the internet. My DSL modem tells me everything is fine, but Chrome won't show any pages. I try IE, same story. Thinking that maybe one of the processes I ended caused this, I restart. I need to make sure the malware is off anyway.

The computer restarts, and no foreign processes show up. I start Google Chrome, and -- nothing. It won't load Google, gmail, LiveScience, CivFanatics, anything. IE's the same way. Chrome and IE are the only two browsers used on this computer: my parents use IE, and I use Chrome. But I do have Firefox installed: it was my browser of choice until I fell for Chrome's streamlinedness. I load Firefox, and hey, presto -- it works fine.

I'm not sure what's going on here. Chrome and IE were the only programs that might've been used when the malware was present, so it stands to reason that they were infected and Firefox wasn't. Did Spybot S&D break them in the process of purging the malware?

If I can't find any other solution, I'm going to use a system restore point from a couple of days ago and see if that helps.

 

[Bratmon]

Have you tried to reinstall them?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Did you check any firewall settings to see if the programs are being blocked? Also reinstall.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I was thinking of reinstalling Chrome, but how would I reinstall IE?

The problem is fixed now, though: I used a restore point and haven't had a problem since.

 

[Turner]

sfc/scannow should reload IE6. You can also use another browser to d/l 7 or 8 if you don't have it. This is assuming a XP system. Vista should reload 7, I would think.

Also, this kind of infection you can boot to safe mode, load regedit, and find the key to disable the malware. It's probably in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. Removing that DWORD should allow you to boot into Windows normally and load up your antispy/malware programs.