More details about what happened...
My wife's Windows 8.1 laptop got infected initially. She is unable to work out how or when exactly this happened.
What I could find out about this malware is that it appears to latch itself on to the Google Chrome browser, and can do damage by stealing passwords, etc. I noticed whenever my wife went to her TalkTalk webmail account, the 'partner18' link would appear on the bottom left of the screen, which would then flick through a variety of website links in rapid succession (some of these were apparently African & Asian), before finally arriving at TalkTalk. Strangely, when my wife arrived at TalkTalk, she often had difficulties logging into the webmail account, and strangely TalkTalk would suggest non-existent TalkTalk account names for her to type in.
Using my LL2 laptop, I wanted to look up 'partner18mydomainadvisor' malware on the internet to get some further information, but inadvertently arrived at their .com website. However their website showed as a black screen, LL2 flickered a few times, and I noticed RAM consumption shot up from around 0.4-0.5 GB to about 1.1 GB, out of a total of 3.8. Clearly, there was something wrong. Even in Win8.1 there appears to be no effective tool from Microsoft to get rid of this - I'd imagine even less in Linux - I only found some quite complicated work to do in the registry to get rid of it (I am not experienced in this area at all), and didn't trust the one or two sites I saw that purported to have a free downloadable software tool for partner18 removal.
So, in the end, the easiest solution was a fresh clean-install on both laptops and the problem appears to have now gone.
And... under the Firefox browser I have changed the search engine from Google to Bing, just to be on the safe side !
Regards
Mike
My wife's Windows 8.1 laptop got infected initially. She is unable to work out how or when exactly this happened.
What I could find out about this malware is that it appears to latch itself on to the Google Chrome browser, and can do damage by stealing passwords, etc. I noticed whenever my wife went to her TalkTalk webmail account, the 'partner18' link would appear on the bottom left of the screen, which would then flick through a variety of website links in rapid succession (some of these were apparently African & Asian), before finally arriving at TalkTalk. Strangely, when my wife arrived at TalkTalk, she often had difficulties logging into the webmail account, and strangely TalkTalk would suggest non-existent TalkTalk account names for her to type in.
Using my LL2 laptop, I wanted to look up 'partner18mydomainadvisor' malware on the internet to get some further information, but inadvertently arrived at their .com website. However their website showed as a black screen, LL2 flickered a few times, and I noticed RAM consumption shot up from around 0.4-0.5 GB to about 1.1 GB, out of a total of 3.8. Clearly, there was something wrong. Even in Win8.1 there appears to be no effective tool from Microsoft to get rid of this - I'd imagine even less in Linux - I only found some quite complicated work to do in the registry to get rid of it (I am not experienced in this area at all), and didn't trust the one or two sites I saw that purported to have a free downloadable software tool for partner18 removal.
So, in the end, the easiest solution was a fresh clean-install on both laptops and the problem appears to have now gone.
And... under the Firefox browser I have changed the search engine from Google to Bing, just to be on the safe side !
Regards
Mike
64bit OS (32-bit on Samsung[i] netbook) installed in [i]Legacy mode on MBR-formatted SSDs (except pi which uses a micro SDHC card):
2017 - Raspberry pi 3B (4cores) ~ [email protected] - LibreElec, used for upgrading our Samsung TV (excellent for the task)
2012 - Lenovo G580 2689 (2cores; 4threads] ~ [email protected] - LL3.8/Win8.1 dual-boot (LL working smoothly)
2011 - Samsung NP-N145 Plus (1core; 2threads) ~ Intel Atom [email protected] - LL 3.8 32-bit (64-bit too 'laggy')
2008 - Asus X71Q (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6/Win8.1 dual-boot, LL works fine with kernel 4.15
2007 - Dell Latitude D630 (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6, works well with kernel 4.4; 4.15 doesn't work
2017 - Raspberry pi 3B (4cores) ~ [email protected] - LibreElec, used for upgrading our Samsung TV (excellent for the task)
2012 - Lenovo G580 2689 (2cores; 4threads] ~ [email protected] - LL3.8/Win8.1 dual-boot (LL working smoothly)
2011 - Samsung NP-N145 Plus (1core; 2threads) ~ Intel Atom [email protected] - LL 3.8 32-bit (64-bit too 'laggy')
2008 - Asus X71Q (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6/Win8.1 dual-boot, LL works fine with kernel 4.15
2007 - Dell Latitude D630 (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6, works well with kernel 4.4; 4.15 doesn't work