I've picked up a trojan. Neither norton or superantispyware can find the source. when i delete the "ad" files and the index.dat file in user/appdata/roaming/microsoft/windows/cookies and cookies/low they come back the next time i start firefox

Question

The "ad" file names look like they're randomly generated. They look like n6sxx8t5.dat and 038prmz7.txt. I get one for every pop-up ad that is generated. That pop-up ad is generally related to the type of web page i'm on when it triggers. it only occurs once per session. what i don't know is if it is also trying to capture any data i'm entering.
like i said, i've deleted the text and index.dat files, but they keep coming back.

Answer 1

Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs.<br />
You need to scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.<br />
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.<br />
<br />
* http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
* http://www.superantispyware.com/ - SuperAntispyware
* http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Windows Defender: Home Page
* http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Spybot Search & Destroy
* http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - Ad-Aware Free
See also:
* "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
* https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Searches+are+redirected+to+another+site
If using the above listed scanners does not fix it or if you are blocked from installing those scanners then ask advice on one of the forums that specialize in malware removal mentioned in the <i>Popups_not_blocked</i> article.