Computer virus or worm ... nasty

[grynche]

My computer got zapped by a worm. It pops up like a Windows security alert for XP 2010. And it pops up and pops up and pops up. It's a fake, designed to get you to buy fake virus protection. It hit a lot of computers this weekend. Some people reported success with removing it via downloadable programs, some said those programs didn't work, some said their computers froze. I turned my computer over to MacAfee on-line and after nearly 4 hours of work by one of MacAfee's techs, my computer is disinfected.

Nasty nasty little wormy thing.

[Sherry]

Shoot, I got that pop up and knew what it was, so I ignored it, but I guess I need to disinfect my computer again. Usually Trend catches these things but I guess it missed that one!

[grynche]

The MacAfee tech gave me another link within MacAfee that deals with worm prevention. As soon as the first pop-up appeared, MacAfee I guess disabled it but didn't remove it. Lots of annoyed MacAfee users on the chat board. I turned my 'puter on this morning with fingers crossed.

[jeninky]

You have to shut down your computer and not by clicking the red X.... It doesn't help and matter of fact it can start the download process..

Beware..

I have seen this happen to me on Yahoo groups homepages and on webshots and some other place too can't remember..

Any place that has ad's on the sidebar is usually where they hide..

I am no computer person but that is where I have noticed it anyways...

[Jeffrey]

got it too. right now im on the computer at school. hopefully dad can remove it tonight.

[Jeffrey]

Freya you didnt lose any files or anything did you? i hope all my music is still on there...

[Silvyr]

Jeffrey,

This particular virus is actually pretty well-known among the technology community (of which my boyfriend is a part of). It is mainly interested in data mining - that is, getting your credit card information so someone can rip you off. Your files should be unaffected.

The ONLY thing I know of that gets rid of this particular virus is Malware Bytes (malwarebytes.org). It's a free program that will scan and destroy viruses. If you're relatively computer-savvy, you should be able to use it yourself. Occasionally this virus stops the program from installing, but if you download the file you can restart your computer in safe mode and run it from there, doing a full scan.

If any of what I've just said sounds like complete gibberish to you, I strongly recommend getting a professional to help you.

Good luck!

Abbe

[Jeffrey]

well me and my dad just went thru everything. our computer is set up with user accounts so we used the administrater account and saved all my moms files and deleted her account entirely since the virus was only on hers and not mine or my sisters accounts. it seems to have worked...

[grynche]

Everything seems fine, Jeffrey. I'll keep a close eye on my bank information for a while. The only time my cc was hijacked on-line, it was used quickly by the crooks and I was notified within 24 hours by the bank.

Silvyr, I read posts similar to yours on the MacAfee chat boards and you're right, it was total gibberish to me. It was fun, tho, watching all the action on my computer screen while the tech was doing his thing remotely. He was probably halfway around the world from me.

[Merry]

I got that nasty virus yesterday evening. After 3 1/2 hours and $85 later our computer is clean again. That virus is ONE BAD VIRUS!!!!

[Audra]

I tried to upload some photos onto facebook and it asked me to download something to help upload. I declined, but we got a virus from whatever that was. The computer is now at the computer hospital getting fixed and I am resorting to hubbys lab top.

[Jeffrey]

i got a pop up while on facebook saying something about a virus. didnt get a chance to read it though. when i saw the word virus i quickly closed the popup, and the internet... nothing else happened again though all seems to be working fine. it didnt look related to the XP 2010 virus above.

[Merry]

When all of this crapola happened, the virus would not allow me to open up the internet. So I had to call our cable service who had me call a place that required money.

After it was fixed I emailed Norton and asked why the heck Norton didn't head it off. My response was that Norton can't prevent everything.

Well, okay, I understand that, but the Norton site has a whole page dedicated to this virus for crying out loud!!

So, I googled "Best internet virus protector." I looked over the choices so that it would be safe. haha!!

And, the first site I went to had a pop up! I got out of there and immediately used my Window Washer.

Gee whiz, what's a person to do!!

[Jeffrey]

my dad said that the reason antivirus programs dont get rid of this is because this virus is listed as an antivirus program itself so norton and others cant get rid of another antivirus program even if its a virus claiming to be antivirus.

[jcstdavid]

If you are talking about Windows Antivirus Pro 2010... I GOT IT!!! actually my son did..he got it from youtube looking at videogame cheat codes n there...came running in asking me what all the pop ups were. it sucked! it wouldnt go away adn when you try to open a webpage it says its dangerous adnd wont allow you..i went through three hours of working on it.. and i got it off..had to go to task panel and processes and end process (av.exe) that what it was on mine ..it can be something else too. and then i was was able to get online quick enough to download appropiate program to get rid of it...it did keep popping up occasionally and i just went to end process and kept doing that until my software was downloaded... I used a software off of cnet.com recommended by my brother. used Kingsoft Internet Security...it is awesome software so far..and found the bug...it is a realtime antivirus, spywayre, malware, and firewall all in one.gave me 90 day trial adn then its only 25 dollars after that. we will see... but it worked adn i had tried two others that didnt get it before i tried this one..and it didnt cost me anything... but man that was so yuck..i was so irritated at one point i thought i would cry! or just scream really loud!!!

if anyone interested the link to the software is..

http://download.cnet.com/Kingsoft-Internet....html?tag=mncol

[Merry]

my dad said that the reason antivirus programs dont get rid of this is because this virus is listed as an antivirus program itself so norton and others cant get rid of another antivirus program even if its a virus claiming to be antivirus.

Thanks, Jeffery. I'd like to get ahold of the person(s) who came up with this virus. I'd sic my big strong son on them!

(just kidding...not)

[rodentraiser]

Here's a tip I recommend: if you get any popup like this on your computer, DO NOT close them by clicking on the X. Instead, use CTRL-ALT-DELETE and close the window that way.

Right now I'm using Avast, Spybot, Ad-Aware and Online Armor. I was going to put AVG on as well, but the computer takes forever to boot up if I add that one in. Can't imagine why! Anyway, these are all free and I highly recommend them. Anyone else have any good luck with these programs?

[Silvyr]

Avast! is my antivirus of choice - it does an excellent job catching viruses while they're still attempting to download, and takes care of them before they can do any damage

[ImaginaryRain]

AVG -used- to be good. It used to be me and hubby's main choice of Anti-virus, with Trend Micro's online scan second. Then we had a keylogger that nothing but Trendmicro saw- that was fun. More recently, I had a boot sector virus crawling around in there- and nothing saw it. In fact, while scanning to get rid of it, TrendMicro found several others that AVG was happily failing to find! And I don't go to the "bad" sites that a lot of viruses are spawned from.

So, we've switched. No more freebies- they just aren't working anymore. Once my computer became nothing more then a 2ft tall brick, they lost my faith in them. Too many failures on their part, despite daily scanning, active software, and continual updates (daily checks). And the lag it caused...

Those viruses are sneaky. I've found them lurking in those plain little .jpg-based ad bars. before- for a while, one of the top web comics sites had one that kept causing my antivirus (AVG then- but this was five years or more ago) to spaz at me.

Each anti virus program will have it's die hard fans, and it's die hard haters. There's no one perfect one, sadly.

[rodentraiser]

Here's a tip I recommend: if you get any popup like this on your computer, DO NOT close them by clicking on the X. Instead, use CTRL-ALT-DELETE and close the window that way.

Right now I'm using Avast, Spybot, Ad-Aware and Online Armor. I was going to put AVG on as well, but the computer takes forever to boot up if I add that one in. Can't imagine why!:thumb: Anyway, these are all free and I highly recommend them. Anyone else have any good luck with these programs?

Er, I believe I was wrong on this. You don't have to use CTRL-ALT-DELETE to close the windows. Just go to the bottom task bar, right click and select CLOSE. But whatever, don't close them by clicking the X.

[Sable]

thank you for deleting the post.