As the title suggest, I may have installed some malicious software called Adventurous Clotth Tool from a company called Adventurous Cloth LLC.
For context, I was looking to download Driver San Francisco and because it’s no longer available for purchase anywhere my brother recommended SteamUnlocked, which he has used before. After skimming the comments I assumed it was safe, downloaded the file(big warning sign in retrospect) and installed the program, after mentioning this to my brother he told me that it should have been the game files in a zip folder, and obviously I broke down in a cold sweat.
I have run multiple checks using Malware Bytes, Windows Defender and an offline Windows Defender scan, all of which reported no problems, however obviously I’m still scared/nervous about what I have done.
Apart from don’t be an idiot, can anyone give me some advice on what I should be doing next? I tried searching for the company and program in question, but no results have come up.
Ahh the good ol’ times, I was once adventurous like you. That’s ok, my recommendation is to make a backup of everything important that you have, if you use banking in that computer just monitor your credit cards and accout. Also it is a good idea to use KeePass or Bitwarden to handle your logins. Once you have done all that just reinstall windows. Yes it is tedious but if you are sailing the seas you need to have a escape plan. Have your backup up to date, when I was younger I had an external drive that I would update before installing dangerous stuff… That after I learned the hard way.
I recommend to format from an USB drive and use the sites in the megathread instad off steamunlocked
You never know what malware is going to do. You could look up sandbox reports of what it did, and then end up with a modified version of the malware. Better to backup stuff, nuke the OS, and start fresh/change passwords on important stuff. Persistence can be a bitch to track down, better to nuke.
Take this as a learned lesson, and do better next time.
Back in the early 00’s I caught thousands of infections… I think somewhere around 3000 infections removed at once was my personal best. Live and learn.
Get ublock origin if you don’t have it
Good general advice, but how will that help in this case?
The way they said they installed something which was different to the game files that were expected made it sound like they might’ve clicked on an ad that was a download button instead of the actual download on the site but I might be wrong because I’ve never been on steam unlocked. They also seem like they’re new to piracy and I would definitely recommend they have a good Adblock even before they visit even the trusted piracy sites.
I was using Opera with Adblock Plus, would that be enough or after the formar, would it be wise to use Chrome/Firefox instead?
I’m a firefox guy but it’s all preference. Definitely swap out adblock plus for ublock origin though.
Would recommend Firefox with uBlock Origin installed. Adblock Plus allows ads through so long as they get paid, it shouldn’t be used under any circumstances.
If you willing to spend some money, find a VM and see if anything bad happens. These types of VM companys won’t allow viruses and will warn you when such viruses happen.
With a bit of basic VM knowledge, this operation can be done for free. I run VMs myself to run certain macros and some windows stuff. As i am primarily a linux user.
EDIT: BUt good point @firecat . I think a VM should do the trick.
If you are technically versed, any.run can often give a good overview over the goals of the malware. You have to sign up and then upload your executable.
