Virushelpzone

[Sauron]

A friend of mine had some sort of anti virus/firewall installed on her system (by some technician) - and the files are now hidden and unaccessible, and I don't have access to her system at this point - she is heavily controlled (her IE opens to one window and its to this "virushelpzone.com", but it won't go to anywhere else) and besides calling this fellow up and demanding he remove the software, is there anything she can do?

Thanks,

Sauron

[pam123]

From the sound of it no.
I would have said she'd been hijacked if you hadn't told me some tech did this to her with a software install (And how did he happen to return the computer to her without checking ?).
The only other possibility is that the Windows Defense Beta was loaded on the machine. It will try to remove 'foreign' security software and when it fails it locks up the machine in a very similar fashion.
The only out is to save what you can and reformat.

[Sauron]

She paid him to come over, actually. I am not entirely certain how it all went through - my friend isn't exactly techy and she didn't ask me before jumping in. Its supposedly to destroy viruses but something that denies access to the internet and bumps one off MSN sounds to me like a firewall - Sygate used to slow my internet speed to almost dial up.

[pam123]

Here is a thread from CastleCops and yes, it's someone else with a virushelpzone start page : http://castlecops.com/postlite148629-virushelpzone.html

I then typed in virushelpzone and found this ( no it won't hijack you but it won't help much either ) : http://www.virushelpzone.com/

So look, the facts are this, there is no reason for a legit security program to hide itself.
This site, which has a Gmail address, is not forthcoming and whatever the guy installed is acting like malware.
There is nothing good to say about any of this.
Save what can be saved, format and reinstall.
I'm sorry you had such a bad time with Sygate but I've used it on DSL accounts with no problem though my preference is Zone Alarm.
AVG is free as are Spybot, Spyware Balster, and ADAware.
Wish that techie on someone you don't like.

[glc]

If she has XP with SP2, the XP firewall is adequate along with a good AV like AVG and some reputable antispyware apps.