Can't log on to secure sites after spyware scan

ijohnson

Globe and Mail Update

QUESTION: I'm worried about spy software so I download Spy-bot and Ad-aware. After running both I think I deleted all the files they found to be dangerous. I was pleased with their performance until I tried to log on to my Internet banking and found I could not. I fear I deleted cookies needed by the site. There are many other sites I can no longer fully use. Is there any way you could help me?

Mark Muirhead

ANSWER: I highly recommend Ad-aware and Spybot. They indirectly caused your problem by removing the malware that was in your system but it was ultimately the malware that caused the problem (and would have caused bigger problems if you hadn't removed it anyway). This is actually a fairly common problem after cleaning up malware and is usually fixable by re-registering some dll files. If you go the this MS site http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813444/en-us you'll find a lot of advice but start with the re-registering advice and leave the system restore as a last resort (usually it's a great help but in this case it would restore the malware you just cleaned and you'd have to clean it again and maybe be back to square one).

Nerds On Site Support Team and Globetechnology.com

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