News - Indie retailer to discuss Antivirus 2009 virus on BBC radio

[HEXUS]

Owner of Forum Computers and chairman of ITACS to appear on Radio 4 today and Radio 5 tomorrow.

Read more.

[Bob Crabtree]

The Beeb is right to try to bring it to the public's attention - as Matthew says, this is indeed an increasingly common infection.

It's also one that has such an elegant interface - beautiful blues reminiscent of some Microsoft apps - that it's hard to credit it as malware.

Bob

[Apex]

Seen 2 variants of this and both got onto the GF's laptop, took a while to clean out too.

Since that i have made a 2nd account on the laptop and limited it to guest access only as i found out who it was that was installing this junk onto the laptop.

It is rather a pain to remove :/

[Bob Crabtree]

Sorry, should have added:

My recommended strategy to get rid of this nasty is to:

* Download (but only from the makers' sites) two freebies - Malware Bytes and SpyBot Search & Destroy - then restart and dab the F8 key to choose "safe mode with networking" before you install, update and run these two apps. Do allow them to run again on the next system restart if that ask to.

Note - If you don't have an Ethernet connection to broadband, only wireless, the "safe mode with networking" option may not give you an internet connection - which would mean you couldn't update the programs directly, you'd need to have already downloaded updaters for them before going into safe mode.

* Get out of safe mode - if you're still there

* Download Kaspersky Internet Security Suite 2009 (it will work fully for 30 days in trial mode)

* Uninstall ALL existing anti-virus software (including McAfee, Norton, AVG, Avast! - you name it) - and if needs be downloading uninstallers for these apps from their makers sites to ensure that they really have been removed.

* Install Kaspersky (it will warn you if some other anti-virus app remains - and stop you going further until you've got rid of the other apps), allow it to update - and then do a full scan.

* Consider giving a donation to the companies behind Malware Bytes and SpyBot

* Find a company that will sell you an OEM version of Kaspersky Internet Security Suite 2009 for a reasonable amount (SCAN Computers is one that has it).

Bob

[Sprite]

Just run malware bytes anti malware on quick scan

[chis]

The easiest way to fix this is to use ComboFix:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/comb...o-use-combofix

Antivirus 2009 seems to be another - or a variant of - Smitfraud-based infection. Sometimes it is also worth running SmitfraudFix:

http://siri.geekstogo.com/

However, I have already encountered infections based on this fraud that are so bad, they seem to install rootkits or something similar, and essentially make Windows so slow as to be unuseable. Best thing to do is backup, format, and reinstall.

And use NOD32!

[Bob Crabtree]

Just run malware bytes anti malware on quick scan

Daniel,

Sadly, your advice will leave anyone who follows it still infected with various nasties (though I should have said in my last posting that when running Malware Bytes, use Quick Scan).

What my advice will do is rid the PC of all infections.

Typically, when I run SpyBot on a client's PC - after having run Malware Bytes - it finds lots of nasties.

Then, when I run Kaspersky afterwards, it finds more still.

Bob (who has disinfected more PC than can possibly be good for the soul!)

[Betty_Swallocks]

which is why I always format the disk and reinstall. You can never be certain that the antivirus has caught everything and jumping through all the hoops you need to in order to try to disinfect it takes hours.
It's quicker and more certain to format. If there any viruses or malware that can survive a format I haven't heard of them.

[Bob Crabtree]

It's quicker and more certain to format.

Blimey, you must run with a VERY lean PC!

In terms of time in attendance, my method takes a couple or three hours (though front-to-back it's considerably longer, of course). And that, in my experience, is trivial compared with the time required to format a hard disk (full, not quick); install the OS; install any motherboard drivers the OS didn't; install all the motherboard-related updaters; install all the necessary apps; install the updaters for OS and apps, etc, etc, etc.

If you want QUICK, then you use Acronis True Image to backup you system and restore from that - but doing a complete fresh reinstall, surely, is anything but quick?

Or am I missing something?