Urgent help needed with computer virus, please.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Hi All, I just acquired a "virus" that says, " Your computer is infected, dangerous infection was detected on you Pc. The system will download and install most effecient antimalwar program to prevent data loss and your private information theft."

I feel this is blackmail as it won't let me use my computer unless I buy their software. It won't let me log onto Yahoo for example. I don't know how I got it but I hope to get rid of it soon. Any ideas to get rid of this is very much appreciated. Thanks. Alan

[Vaughn McMillan]

My only suggestions are to make sure they're up to date, then run your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. (I'm assuming you have both.) This may or may not help...a friend of mine got something similar a while back (clicking on stuff he shouldn't have been clicking), and whatever bug(s) he caught disabled his anti-virus. He decided the fastest way to fix the system was to totally wipe the hard drive and start all over. He had virtually nothing of importance stored on his disk, so it's not too big of deal for him. If you have good backups of your important stuff, starting with a freshly-formatted disk is the most certain way of get rid of the bad stuff.

And I agree, I hope there's a special place in Hades for scum who infect a computer, then have the nerve to try to sell you a fix for the problem. (Which is likely not a fix anyway, but additional nasty stuff they'd like you to install on your system for their use.)

Good luck Alan -

- Vaughn

[Chris Giles]

Does it say Spyaxe on it? If so, I had the same one. It is blackmail, and it is illegal and spyware. I rectified the situation by having my hard drive wiped clean except for my photos. I guess this is the world we now live in.

[Marcus Ward]

Go to microsoft's site and download their antispyware program. It should get rid of it.

[Bob Johnson2]

I could be mistaken, but I'd bet it's just advertising, something like phishing. I see similiar popups once in awhile and ignore them.

[tod evans]

kaspersky.com

[Bob Tate]

I would be willing to bet it is one of the variants of Adware.Generic.xxx (xxx being one of the variants, there are hundreds).
many of my workplace computers have been infected lately. Run the PC Cillin Housecall (from their web site), then the Free Personal version of Spybot, then the Free Personal version of AdAware. It took all three, in that order to kill them all. It worked for me.

[John Harden]

Probably the most effective thing you can do is to purchase and install Norton Internet Security. Go buy the actual disk package at a Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. Set it to run and get site updates nightly. Also install all new patches from Microsoft as appropriate.

One final thing would be to set up an adminstrator account on your home PC for installation and maintenance of hardware and software, then set up "non-privileged" user accounts for all other family members.

Good luck.

Regards,

John

[Mike Henderson]

Go to the Microsoft site and search on "spyware". They have a free program that does a good job of detecting and removing spyware. It is not a virus detection and removal program but it does a very good job on spyware.

Even if what you have is not spyware, it's good to have that spyware program on your computer.

Good luck!

Mike

[Charlie Mastro]

It's spyware and no microsoft anti-spyware won't fix it. You can clean your clock as someone suggested, I did that one and it fixed it but I had to erase everything.

Go to infopackets.com and they have a way to do it involving using 3 free programs you can download. Worked for me.

Chuck

[Tom Donalek]

I knid of hate to say this, but once you get this straightened out, please consider using an operating system other than Windows. None of us would even think of buying or using a wood working tool that is as badly made and poorly performing as Windows. Even Harbor Freight wouldn't carry Windows if it was a tool.

[Marcus Ward]

Yeah, don't you know how much fun it is to update module dependencies just to get some dorky piece of software to work??

[Jeff Davis]

I agree with Bob Johnson2....... It's probably just popups disguised as a virus. I get these all of the time....... Just X out of it. If you don't have some anti virus/spyware software on your computer -- get some. It could save you a tremendous headache and prevent the loss of some valuable files..............

have a good one

jad

[Tom Donalek]

Yeah, don't you know how much fun it is to update module dependencies just to get some dorky piece of software to work??

yeah, but there are no pop-ups when you're web-browsing in Lynx! Snork! Chortle! (OK, way, way off topic! Sorry!)

But to try to be helpful: If this thing is 'tying up' your computer, have you tried holding down the "Alt" button, then hitting the "Tab" button to switch to other programs?

Also, once you get this cleaned up, you might want to try the Firefox browser as a replacement for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Part of how a lot of the malicious thingies work is by exploiting the behind-the-scenes connections between various Microsoft programs and Windows itself. A few of those hidden connections let programs do actual useful stuff, but a lot of them are just 'unlocked doors' that the bad guys have learned to exploit. Firefox is free and was written by computer geeks from around the world who wanted to make a 'better mousetrap' for viewing the WWW. Check out:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Personally, I feel a lot better about connecting with my credit card company or bank with Firefox than with Internet Explorer when I'm using a Windows computer.

[Allen Bookout]

I knid of hate to say this, but once you get this straightened out, please consider using an operating system other than Windows. None of us would even think of buying or using a wood working tool that is as badly made and poorly performing as Windows. Even Harbor Freight wouldn't carry Windows if it was a tool.

I could not have said it better. Check out Mandriva. You will love it and you will never have to worry about such things again.

I never go on line with a windows operating system.

Good Luck! Allen