Safari keeps re-routing to spam sites and opening spam windows. How do I fix this?

Question

Hi,
recently Safari started having issues.  When I open a new window it re-routes itself to a random spam site.  I doesn't matter what website I'm going to and it doesn't happen every time, just at random.  Also, when I am on a website and I go to click on a link (again, doesn't matter what website or link..example: on msn and clicking on a news story) a window to a spam site will pop up instead. 
Tonight this spam window started popping up, I opened a new tab and this is what loaded:
Has anyone run into such a problem before or has any ideas of how to fix it?  I tried re-installing safari once already and that didn't help.  Thanks,
-Kate

Answer 1

Look in your System Preferences > Accounts > Log-in Items and uncheck anything you see there that you don't use. Reboot.
Use Spotlight or EasyFind to search for traces of the MacDefender Trojan and move to your Trash, reboot and see if your machine works and then Empty Trash.
Some people may be satisfied that this is enough, but I wouldn't take any chances if you gave the malware/installer your Admin password.
The next step would be to backup your files manually to a external drive. (not TimeMachine)
Hold c and boot off the OS X installer disk that came with your machine,
Select Disk Utility from the menu, select your drive and Erase > Security Option Zero > Format HFS+ Journaled (all data will be erased!)
Come back in a hour (it takes a bit to Zero a drive) and quit Disk Utility and install OS X fresh again. Install your programs from fresh sources.
Return your files from backup.
Yes, it's a lot of work. If you did your backup correctly all your files can be returned to the machine and after a few days of retweaking things, entering serial numbers, wifi passwords, etc., you will be back to normal.
You'll know you got all traces of the malware off your machine.
To prevent this from reoccurring:
The MacDefender and it's varients use a Javascript flaw, so no Javascript running in your browser = no MacDefender
Safari can turn off Javascript but a lot of sites use it and going to the Preferences is a pain.
1: Use the Firefox web browser instead, it has a confirmation window before a download occurs.
2: Use the Firefox add-on "NoScript" and use Firefox toolbar customization option to drag a Noscript button to the toolbar for easy turning on/off all scripts and plug-ins on websites you choose on a per site basis. NoScript also has a lot of other "web cop" protection features as well that malware uses.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
3: Optional: For click happy types (kids) also install the Public Fox add-on and set a password on the downloads.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/public-fox/
4: Optional: Add the Firefox add-on called Ad Block Plus, subscribe to the "Easy list" (nearly automatic)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/