[Resolved] Have I been bugged ?

[wrisky]

I opened IE and tried opening a page from my favotites folder and was directed to a page with this on it.....
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Diese Seite kann nicht angezeigt werden,
da diese auf diesem Server nicht existent ist.
Bitte gehen Sie auf die Startseite zurück:
www.twoplustwo.com




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hosted by
http://www.domainname.at

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www.twoplustwo.com is the link from my favorites folder but the rest is pure BS.Also other links force me into some traceroute page from MIT!
The german site is some domain hosting site that I have never seen before .
I cleaned out all the temp files and cookies from IE but that didn't help.......
Any suggestions as to how I can remove this web malignancy ?

 

[Bryan]

First clear your History. In IE click on Tools>InternetOptions>Clear History. Now get to your Favorites folder in IE and Right click on the Favorite and select Delete to delete that favorite that's going to the wrong page. Then manually enter the URL into the browser window and goto the site. Does it goto the correct site? If so, readd it to the Favorites.

If that does no good, check for the existance of a Hosts file.

Start>Find>Files, key in Hosts and press enter. Click on View>Details. Your looking for a file called just Hosts with no extension on the end of the file name. Your going to find files named Hosts.sam and imhost.sam but they aren't what your looking for. Your looking for a file just named Hosts. Do you find one? If so, close all instances of IE. Then Right click on the Hosts file and rename it Hosts.old

Now start IE and try that site.

 

[wrisky]

I did what you said and it didn't make any difference .....

 

[wrisky]

I looked again and there was a second "hosts" file.I did what you said and the problem disappeared!
Thank you very much, for awhile there I was one hot sucker....
Can anyone tell me where that file came from ?

 

[Rollin' Rog]

The Hosts file is often used by web accelerators, ad and spy blocker programs to link Domain Names with IPs (Internet addresses). This can be useful for faster Domain Name resolution, or for identifying and blocking or filtering problem sites.

Hard to say what the issue was in your case, but the Domain Names and the original IPs probably no longer correlated so you got taken to a different address.

 

[Bryan]

And it could also be used maliciously if someone puts common website names like for example, www.yahoo.com in there with an IP address that points to other sites that they are interested in directing you to. If you were to try to get to Yahoo, it would look to the Hosts file first to resolve to the IP, find the entry and then take you to whatever site IP they entered into your Hosts file. Actually I'm surprised that people up to no good don't do more manipulating of Hosts files. It's such an easy way to mess things up until someone figures out it's the Hosts file causing it.