I have a problem with getting rid of some spyware I have on my computer. I ran an antispyware program of mine and it picked up some spyware files hidden on my computer. The threat level that some of them were tagged with by the program were "severe" and "high" and the description that was given to them wasn't that innocent sounding either. One was labeled as "Marketscore.InternetAccelerator" and has the following description .... "MarketScore is a proxy service that presents itself as increasing the speed of your Internet connection. It has the ability to redirect and decrypt information transmitted between this computer and a website." One other spyware component I have is labeled "LoudMarketing.Bridge/WinFavorites" and it has the following descripton... "Bridge monitors your Internet browsing activities. It logs keystrokes and display pop-up advertising" Those are just two of the more severe spyware components that were detected and they have mostly exe and dll files associated with them. They are mostly located in my Windows/System32 folder and because of that my antispyware program was unable to remove them after they were detected. I can't manually delete them either. I don't recall how I can remove files like that that are in a system folder because Windows wont allow them to be removed. I need to get these removed because I suspect this may be at least partially the source of some of the subtle odd behavior I've had on my computer. I've had some odd behavior with the I.E. browser and right now I'm not using it anymore and instead using more secure browsers. I've had at times what appear to be normal requests by applications to my ZoneAlarm firewall, but with the loopback ip address and odd port numbers and I am behind a router as well on a home network. Most suspicious of all recently is that I had a problem in which apparently someone got personal info. on my computer including my credit card number and my Ebay ID and password and was using those for unauthorized transactions before I got it back. So I've apparently had the security on my computer breached by some hacker through some kind of spyware or trojan horse files. Right now I don't trust anything on my computer and am afraid of anything else being compromised and I want to rid of anything that may be lurking somewhere in the crevices of my hard drive that is compromising my computer. Up until I ran this antispyware program recently other security software I have hadn't detected anything and I'm having trouble cleaning my computer and getting it secure again short of formatting the hard drive. So I'm hoping I can get some help here and want to get rid of those spyware files in that system folder.

Personally, I think that once your Credit Card details have been sourced, it is about time that you do format. There are, of course, many spyware/adware removal programs around, but your situation appears to have gone past that stage.

I found the same probs. I ended up using a program call spysweeper, available from www.webroot.com. I found it to be a very usful tool. another program u may be able to use is call fix-it, spysweeper is available as a 30 free download trial, or u may purchase online, u may be able to buy at local software stores regards les

It sounds like you're grossly underprotected. Do you have a good AV program, updated, and run regularly? Do you operate behind a firewall? If so, which one? Do you have the best anti-spyware and anti-adware programs such as AdAware, Spybot, MS AntiSpyware, Scan Spyware, etc.? If not, post back and I'll send some links. I don't blame you for being gun shy at this point, and garyvanput may be right. I hope everything is backed up. I'm surprised you can't remove some of those files. Have you tried to do it in safe mode? Where do you stand on system restore? Do you have some restore points you can try once you're complete protected? Keep in mind that some of your existing restore points may have malware in them. You may have to turn them off, clean your hard drive, and turn it on again, creating a new restore point. But you should be sure you're clean.

In addition to all the above I recommend that you not store personal info like CC numbers on your computer. It is convienient to let Windows autofill but this exposes you needlessly. I never allow vendors to store my CC numbers either. This isn't going to fully protect you but it can help.

Thanks for the responses. I'm not sure how I acquired some of these suspicious files and how someone got my personal info. in the first place because I took the standard security precautions on my computer. I have ZoneAlarm Pro firewall. I have Norton Antivirus 2004 though I'm not updating the anti-virus definitions right now because it has expired. I have a couple anti-spyware trojan horse programs including Ad Aware, Spybot, CWShredder, Microsoft AntiSpyware, and SwatIt. I had been updating patches and such at the Microsoft update site until a while ago because for a while now when I try to go there and update things, I get error messages preventing me from doing so. So I wasn't leaving myself totally vulnerable. I had system restore turned off already because I don't bother to use that. I also run some online scanners and pc maintenance products from time to time including pcpitstop.com. It seems though that whatever security product I run usually isn't able to detect things or fix the mess that my system has gotten into. I do also back up my files on cd. I suspect that it may have been through some Java or ActiveX exploit through some website while using I.E. or something I downloaded before that may have led to my system being compromised. I knew it wasn't wise to keep my credit card info. and other personal info. such as passwords, stored on my hard drive. I just took that for granted and stored them anyway as a matter of convenience. Well, I learned my lesson about that and now I'm not going to do that. I suppose I'm just going to have to reformat my hard drive and hope that that does clean my computer for good.