Selective Web Browsing

Since I can't post in the hijack category, this seemed to be the next best place. I am having a problem accessing certain websites, msn, microsoft, my college's website, AOL, and I'm sure there are probably more. The thing is, I can access google, mlb.com, and this site. I think it might be a problem with our network setup because our company just rellocated, but my boss suspects it could be a browser hijack. I don't think it fits the bill though, as far as I know, my cpu useage is normal, so is my network traffic, and my home page is not being changed nor are my ip settings. Ad-aware, Spy-bot and Ewido have all come up clean. I've got a fully patched xp box and it's protected with Fortinet Anti-Virus, with most recent updates. Either it's something no one has seen yet, or just a networking problem. This condition is only present on a few employees machines, some have no problems browsing, while others like me have trouble getting to certain websites. I have also reviewed the restricted list on IE and found nothing. Has anyone faced any similar problems like this or heard of any new browser hijacks?

 

Have you tried tracert-ing to the affected sites and seen (a) how far the trace gets and (b) is the resolved IP address correct? It sounds like either a hosts file hijack affecting several PCs or, more likely, a network issue on the LAN.

HijackThis may provide more info, but you'll need to submit one of those logs elsewhere as Wilders doesn't offer HJT log diagnosis support, as you're already aware.

 

I did. The tracert goes out and finds the website no problem, it just won't load it. I'm running out of scanners to throw at it, and it seems unlikely that it is a network problem because only a few computers have this problem....yet nothing was found.....

 

Your results suggest that it could be a problem with Port 80 being blocked or otherwise hijacked/proxied, since the traceroute can get through and that doesn't use port 80. Possibly a firewall or other security screen issue affecting a subset of machines on the LAN.

Another thing to try is an alternative browser - you could try portable firefox, which doesn't need installing (and will run from a USB drive/memory stick), which will rule out a specific browser hijack affecting IE only.

 

It's not browser specific, already tired with Opera, FF and now portable FF. More than likely has something to do with the new Fortinet firewall....which we need to probably modify.