what causes about:blank and popups

My stepdaughter is having apparent hijacking problems with her son's computer - homepage is about:blank and lots of popup adds and some **** showing up. She has tried downloading a few utilities but without complete success. Since most of this is a little complicated to do it yourself, she has decided to take the machine to be erased and reloaded. But her question is this: what exactly causes this? Is it chat rooms, email, online gaming? Or visiting certain websites?? She is wanting to try to avoid this happening in the future! Thanks for any help! Oh, by the way, will reformatting the computer actually get rid of all this?

 

Hello dlmars,

But her question is this: what exactly causes this? Is it chat rooms, email, online gaming? Or visiting certain websites??

It could be specific sites, but you can't blame broad categories. A lot of malware resides on Servers; for example, Comcast's Severs have a terrible reputation regarding infections.

The ultimate defense resides in Browser security, a good firewall, and a good AV. This Hijacker came thru the browser:

will reformatting the computer actually get rid of all this?

Yes.

Regards - Charles

 

Yes, a format and clean install will erase everything on the drive. About:blank is a CoolWebSearch infection. One known entry point is through a vulnerability in the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine. Recommend using Sun Java instead. There are several programs available to help combat these installations, as well as tweaking your internet security settings. Take time to read the pinned topic, So how did I get infected in the first place? Install a good antivirus and firewall, preferably before connecting to the internet.

 

Hello dlmars,
You may be interested in the IEspyads.Zip link below. The installation of the REG files contained in the download will prevent most of those drive-by installs.

 

Thanks to all of you for all your advice. I will pass it on to her so that she can try to prevent this from happening again. It's really bad because they just bought the computer a couple of months ago and this started happening not too long afterward. I have not had a problem with any of this on my computer, but I think I will download one or two of those on mine just to keep it from happening here!

Anyway, again I thank you for helping out. I'm so glad I found this website over a year ago! You all have always been so helpful and so quick with responses!