My system booted very slowly and then showed two user accounts: a new "Administrator" account beside my usual user account in Windows 8.1, instead of simply going to my account directly and asking its password. Thankfully my normal (local) user account is also an administrator account (and password protected).
However, upon rebooting, the system now only went to this "new" Administrator account, without a password, and which was very slow to respond to mouse clicks and events. Eventually getting to its desktop, it showed only three icons, including a "Removed Apps" icon that was a HTML link to somewhere… Very suspicious.
Rebooting only took me back to this "unwanted" account, which turned out to be the built-in Administrator account that was somehow "hijacked" for this weirdness. Using BIOS/boot routines, pressing F10 and F12 at startup, I could get into my usual account using Safe Mode, but that didn't allow me to connect to the internet, etc.
After the initial panic subsided, my solution was to use Windows 8's System Restore function to restore to the most recent "restore point" of a week ago. The restore point option was offered as an advanced option in a boot manager. (I was considering installing Windows 7 or Ubuntu, which made the dual-boot manager appear at startup, for this drastic solution.) Windows 8's System Restore seemed to solve the problem, and then I ran MalwareBytes which quarantined and removed a bunch of adware/malware/other junk.
Was this some kind of one-off malware attack? I think I picked it up from an unclean USB the day before.
My name is Satchfan and I would be glad to help you with your computer problem.
Please read the following guidelines which will help to make cleaning your machine easier:
please follow all instructions in the order posted
please continue to review my answers until I tell you your machine appears to be clear. Absence of symptoms does not mean that everything is clear
all logs/reports, etc. must be posted in Notepad. Please ensure that word wrap is unchecked. In Notepad click Format, uncheck Word wrap if it is checked
if you don't understand something, please don't hesitate to ask for clarification before proceeding
the fixes are specific to your problem and should only be used for this issue on this machine.
please reply within 3 days. If you do not reply within this period I will post a reminder but topics with no reply in 4 days will be closed!
IMPORTANT:
Please DO NOT install/uninstall any programs unless asked to.
Please DO NOT run any scans other than those requested
unfortunately, i'm very suspicious of installing unknown software, and after using windows 8's system restore function, as well as a quick clean with malwarebytes, i felt the problem was solved.
clearly some malware gained administrator access on my machine, which is worrying, but generally i'm quite careful!
I would strongly suggest that you run the tools I suggested as a system restore and Malwarebytes alone won't clean everything. What I asked you to run are safe programmes that are recommended and safely used by all of the malware removal teams on the top respected forums. If you'd rather not and are happy to close this, please let me know.
