I'm not entirely sure how it happened (I think it was something my mom was doing when she needed to borrow the computer?), but upon logging in, I found that NIS09 was malfunctioning because it's core files had been modified, the hosts file was mysteriously gone, and that there were numerous connections to 007guard.com (discovered via netstat /f), which is a malware distribution site.
I did a complete reinstall of NIS09 in safe mode, did a scan with spybot S&D (which found nothing), and am currently waiting for a NIS scan to finish. I also scanned with Sophos Anti-Rootkit, which found nothing. I've also restored the hosts file. However, I'm still deeply worried that my computer is still infected. My fears are further instigated by the fact that I cannot run HijackThis without the display mysteriously shutting off (I can't even run it as admin) (the only way to rectify it is to lock the computer, then log back in, terminate explorer and HijackThis, then restart explorer). However, I was able to get a log file out of the deal.
Netstat before fixing hosts file.
Netstat after fixing hosts file.