A warning to local bloggers

Our computer has been hijacked by...something.

This morning, I clicked on one of the local blogger's (Pasghetti's Place) links on my sidebar (that's since been removed). The blog was gone. But in it's place was some kinda ad. I tried to back out fast, but it was too late.

It's something called "Malware Alarm 2.1" and basically, it's holding the computer hostage until I buy the friggin thing.

I'll throw away the computer first.

I ran the MSN Spy Sweeper program and it found it, but when I tried to remove it, I got a popup that said I needed to go online first in order to remove that specific program. It LOOKED like a legit popup from Spy Sweeper....so I clicked it. It evidently wasn't legit and now I can't even remove the program, even using the Control Panel. Basically, it's saying that I have to purchase the program in order to figure out how to remove it.

I can still get online, but it's waaaay slower than usual.

I tried using the Spy Sweeper program again, but it didn't even pick it up the second time.

Anybody got any ideas?

Update: Whew! After three attempts to do a system restore, it finally worked and we rode that Trojan horse into the sunset. So to speak.

'Course, the first two times, it was me tryin to do it. The Zigster got the job done on the third try. Which either means he's a lot smarter than me or that what I did to it enabled him to finish the job so easily on the third try. (ahem) Yea. That's it.