Had a strange phenomenon recently. My usually happy laptop started behaving strangely –lots of annoying pop-ups and misdirecting me to limited sites, some of them what you could call a bit dodgy, defintely places I didn’t want to go to. The first search result page was mostly lot of sponsored ads with maybe only the bottom entry on the page being an actual search result. What on earth was going on?

I noticed a change in my browser to Searchnu which I hadn’t set up. The other thing was a frequent error page with the words searchnu/ followed by a number. The numbers can vary. There is another form that is searchqu

It seems that searchnu is a browser hijacker often downloaded when the person agrees to  the terms and conditions of something they want to download without paying close attention to the small print. Problem is that because it was downloaded “voluntarily” by the user, it doesn’t get picked up by usual security programs as a virus or malware when you run a scan so it sits there undetected and continues to operate annoyingly. What I found out was it’s often downloaded along with iLivid or Google Chrome. It is also apparently connected with Ask Jeeves web site.

That is only the beginning of the story — some forms of searchnu are more serious, such as searchnu/421–  which can start to steal your details all the way up to identity theft.  Obviously, it needs to be dealt with quickly. The longer it remains on your computer the more damage it can create. Unfortunately it installs itself in the registry so some searchnu programs need to be tackled more strenuously than just deleting an item from your programs folder.

So, time for some homework on google.

The tools I found to handle it were: Hitman Pro from SurfRight followed by some other programs

Downloads – SurfRight
Smitfraudfix How to use SmitFraudFix – Geeks to Go Forums
Combofix A guide and tutorial on using ComboFix
Malwarebyte Antimalware Malwarebytes Anti-Malware – Download.com

After I ran the above, then I installed something to protect my browser.

Browser Protect: Browser Hijack Protection for free – BrowserProtect.org

And then an additional security program was added from Avast:

avast! | Download Free Antivirus Software or Internet Security

Combofix is a very powerful program and best used under supervision by someone who is knowledgeable about computers. Not one to mess around with.

The problem appears to be fixed now and my computer is now running smoothly. It took some time but it was worth it.