Virus Alert - XP Total Security 2011 - Comments Page 1

Oh yes, I have been a victim of this virus. I wish I would have had this newsletter a couple of months ago. It had completely blocked my internet access, except for their site. Told me AVAST was infected. What a pain!!! I ended up formatting my hard drive and re-installing WinXP. Thankfully I use Carbonite for my backups. My first experience with a virus like this. Nasty!
Thanks for the info Bob.

FWIW, I have had this happen twice. I am computing along and I get some frightful message about being infected. without pausing, I turn the computer off, reboot and run malwarebytes, which tells me I have no infection. this leads me to believe the SCARE tactics are a scam and I had pursued the proper path. in other words, don't believe everything you hear or see.

I got XP Anti-Virus 2011, I repaired it with Superantispyware Professional.
The only problem is now it has stoped Microsoft automatic updates and I am unable to switch it on

Yes, the worst place to get these is from websites that purport to show medical information.

What I do is have a clean ghosted image of my C: drive using Norton's Ghost and keep it on a separate internal D: drive ... and if infected, just copy the ghosted bit image over my infected C: drive. Then I restart, then reupdate all my software and drivers and reghost again.

It is far too difficult to clean a drive without re-formatting or ghosting. Ghosting is just faster than reformatting.

I had that Virus. After 2-3 days I bought what it was selling, odd thing is it worked--for about 24 hours. A couple of days later my computer showed the same problems; I used the 12 letter code provided and it seemed to clean it again--for 24 hours. A few days later I bought SpyHunter4 and that cleared it out and I've been OK for a week or so, Hopefully, end of story.
PS I've asked MC to cancel the 1st purchase; awaiting their answer.

Good structure, but most of these Malewares block the downloading of updates.
Better to UNCHECK the check for updates
Run a full scan,
Delete all found items
reboot then check for updates
rerun the full scan.

I build and repair way too many affected by variants of this maleware.
the above steps usually clear all problems
Yea Malewarebytes, great product

Now this is information I am saving just in case I get duped again. I had this virus before. Thanks Bob.

I can't remember the name of the trojan that infected my machine last year, but as I recall all I had to do was start in safe mode, then I ran MBAM free, which killed that horse. Restarted normally and was good to go. This could be a different virus though needing all those renaming steps.

yes, I got it, also. I didn't have Bob Rankin's info here, so I ran about 6 different anti-spyware, anti-malware programs until it (seems to be) rooted out (thank you, Bob, you've made it a LOT easier for those who want to get rid of this malware, my method took about a week!!).

I used to have those problems, back in the days of relying on Free protection software....

I had it and got rid of it with Spybot but I have the problem with Automatic Update no longer working and going to the Windows Update page it says it can't display that page.

I downloaded the program rkill and keep it on my desktop. I also have the the malware bytes loaded and keep it updated. Plus I put both programs on my memory stick. When the fake virus pops up, you can not x it out or anything, just minus it to the task bar, then click rkill. A small dos window will open saying it is stopping the virus working in the back ground. It only takes afew seconds for rkill to run, then close it and run malware byts. It's fast and easy to do. I have used this method several times to clean mine, my family's and my neighbor's computers.You can read more about rkill online. I enjoy Bob's free tech support!!! I have learned so much stuff from him!!He is one of the best!

Remove this Horrible crap with RKILL which can be downloaded from www.bleepingcomputer.com

It will swiftly and cleanly get rid of this or any other BOGUS anti-viral application.

It simply works!
(I carry it in my USB flash drive and renamed it "Dennis" but you can rename it anything you want.)

Hello Bob.
I love your site as it keeps me informed about many things not only about computers and/or the internet. Indeed a well-rounded website!

Do you accept Donations?

Wow! I guess I still don't understand how this virus can get onto a pc if you're running a live antivirus. Great info on what to do to clean it out.
I hope I never get this one!

Why can't the perpetrators of malware programs be arrested and jailed? This is invasion of privacy, fraud, scam and a few other illegal things.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Two main reasons: They are hard to find, and most of them are in Russia, China, or some other place where the rule of law is not a high priority.

Here are the steps I use to eradicate all these types of security hijackers:
1) Boot into safe mode with command line.
2) Close the command window by typing EXIT at the prompt.
3) Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to get the task manager and press the NEW TASK button and type MSCONFIG.
4) Go the the Startup tab. Look for a program with random characters for a name and note its location.
5) Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again, press the NEW TASK button and type EXPLORER.
6) From the START button, go to MY COMPUTER, navigate to the Folder that contains the offending file.
7) Delete the Folder and restart in SAFE MODE w/ NETWORKING.
8) Run MBAM and update the program.
9) Do a full scan and let MBAM eradicate the rest.

Works every time.

I just cleaned a friends computer of one of these variants plus a few extra Trojans. What a pain! I removed the HD and attached it as a USB external drive to an uninfected computer and ran MalwareBytes but it failed to find anything. I then ran SuperAntiSpyware and it found Trojans. Reran it again and it said it was clean. Ran MalwareBytes again and it detected 2 additional Trojans. The grief did not stop there. Other damage was done - Administrator privileges were modified to read-only, Task manager would not come up, Windows Update would not recognize the administrator account and would not work. Fixed them all after much Googling. Hopefully who have the misfortune to be infected can defeat as easily as this article suggests without the extra fallout.

I could not see a way round the malware presence having had several attempts blocked by it.

My solution finally was to transfer documents, music, pictures etc onto a flash drive and upgrade to Windows 7 (which I had been planning to do anyway). This annihilated the malware files in the XP registry. I then installed MBAM, downloaded its updates, ran a scan, then reloaded my application software.

A lengthy solution, but a successful one which I had intended to get round to for a while.

After downloading MBAM, or whatever high power malware remover that you like to use, on a Windows machine that you know is infected, shouldn't System Restore be turned off before launching MBAM and not recativated until MBAM has run and all malware has been removed or quarantined ???

Any comment, Bob ??? Anyone ???

PS; Everything I have learned about computers, software and PC maintenance/troubleshooting, I learned from Bob's site here and from Leo Notenboom's site, ask-leo.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks for the kind words! Leo is a friend and I'll pass along your regards. As for pausing System Restore, I don't see any benefit. How likely is it that a restore point will be made during the brief time when MBAM is running?

Can anyone tell me if I can install MBAM if I have McAfee security installed on my computer? And would the McAfee that I keep updated catch this malware? Thanks for any help you can give me!

EDITOR'S NOTE: MBAM seems to play nice with other security tools.