Crazy ass virus

Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 5:52 pm Post subject: Crazy ass virus

As some of you know i've been trying to get back into this game. I recently hit upon some insane virus that came out some ads on a comic book website. Basically everything I clicked on said it was infected. Even the anti virus on my computer was infected. My computer has been off for about a week and when i turned it back on the virus suddenly became null and void. I ran my anti virus and it got rid of it.

Now the only issue is that my computer is sooooo full of stuff that I have installed, uninstalled, downloaded and deleted, moved and re-moved that my computer is horribly fragmented.

The point is this. I miss all of you here and I cant wait to get in the server again, but I will have to wait still because I need to reformat my hard drive.

Take it easy and peace out
Psycho

Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 6:50 pm Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

Sorry about the virus....we will be here when you can come back Very Happy

Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:17 pm Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

Lost my whole system a couple of weeks back, and it is stil not running right.

I feel your pain.

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:42 am Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

I do business IT support for a living, and 50% of what I do now is removing crap like 'Security Tool' and 'Antivirus Pro 2010'. Never trust one anti virus program to say that the threat has been completely removed. In addition to your normal av software, I'd suggest downloading and running CCleaner, Malware Bytes, and Spy Bot. This could save you having to reformat, although reformatting is the only way to be 100% sure that you have a clean system. Well, unless you backup all your data and accidentally snag a copy of the bug too. It never ends, does it lol

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 4:53 am Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

"Get well soon!"
Wink

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:31 am Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

My recommendations are in suit with what SgSpecial and others posted.

Malwarebytes works well in addition to your stock AV program. CCleaner rocks, is free and will do well if you leave it be and run what is defaulted.

I ended up just reformatting and reinstalling the OS to be safe. I was upgrading anyway so it was a plus and no biggie.

If you go the route of CCleaner, Malwarebytes, or Spybot.....use another computer and rename the files. Some of these programs are tricky and have some sort of damn software recognition tool embedded and will see it as a threat.

Safe mode is great and make sure you isolate what files you can. I'd recommend backing them up periodically, and you now risk migration of the virus if you want to back up your files now. I do a once a week file check, and save them to my USB drives to be safe.

Sorry this happens to anyone, it's frustrating and I hope you get it fixed.

Last note, I'm not IT guy or computer whiz. But as past posts have indicated, I've had to learn the hard way too and anything I can pass along to help someone here is good for me.

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:21 am Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

All that advice does help. Luckily my uncle is an IT guy and he maybe able to reformat my hard drive for me for free (i dont have the original start up disc as my brother is the one who built my computer for me)

All my safe stuff is already on external hard drives or USB drives and its all virus free. So now i just gotta get this computer going

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:01 pm Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

I figured out what the virus is. It's a scam of an Anti virus called Antivirus Soft that self installs onto your computer and holds your computer hostage with fake viruses until you pay the services to remove something that's not there. Because it poses as an anti virus it isnt found by any ccleaner or any other anti virus

had to get windows security updates to get rid of it

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:14 pm Post subject: Re: Crazy ass virus

CCleaner isn't a anti virus/malware program. It is designed to clean out the temp directories and caches, where a lot of infections live before they copy themselves to places like appdata and system32. The idea is to run CCleaner at least once a week, or better yet once a day(you can set it to auto run at startup) so it can delete potential threats before they start popping up. Once they do pop up, then you need apps like Malware Bytes to clean them; or in your case get lucky and the 'Windows malicious software removal tool' nabs it. The kind of bug you had is just a variant of 'scareware' that is spreading like wildfire. The downside is that waaaay too many people fall for the scam. Just last week I had to deal with two clients that had purchased the software. I even had one poor sap that bought it twice.