I just somehow picked up a virus after leaving the TC site. So TC members be careful. It seems there is a bogus "BEST MALWARE PROTECTION" virus going around again. I was snagged the first time. It appears to be from microsoft but absolutely is a SCAM. The file attaches to your start-up menu "Best Malware Protection" and tricks you into thinking your computer has numerous threats.... and for 49.95 they can remove those threats. Just a heads up! I paid the first time and found out it was a scam. I used my American Express card. American Express actually credited my account when I called them. This company is from the Middle East to boot.

Malwarebytes anti-malware is what I use....

It will not be from TC....possibly from one of the dreaded hot linked adverts.
IF you have been hit, it may not be from the last site, very likeky a site sometime before and the code doesntn activate straight way

I have been running testing MES microsoft security essntuals....and Im very impressed.....espec the real time protection....and it is free IF your MS operationg system is legit.
I am now running MES on all my machines and customers now.

I am now using Kaspersky Internet Security. I was in need of new antivirus software so I did a review search on anti-virus software. Kaspersky rated very high on 5 different searches. I am very happy with it.

It will not be from TC....possibly from one of the dreaded hot linked adverts.
IF you have been hit, it may not be from the last site, very likeky a site sometime before and the code doesntn activate straight way

I have been running testing MES microsoft security essntuals....and Im very impressed.....espec the real time protection....and it is free IF your MS operationg system is legit.
I am now running MES on all my machines and customers now.we have it on all of ours - 2 desk tops, 3 laptops and a netbook - 2 of these are XP and the rest Win7 - works great and like said it's free!

Scott, that's what I keep reading as well... Kaspersky Internet Security is not only the stand-alone Kaspersky anti-virus utility, but a complete malware suite as well.
Good stuff.

your not alone DT i had a number of friends call me yesterday about the same malware hitting their systems! One can run a good malware programe and get rid of it. CCleaner is excellent and its free for those that wish to get rid of this and protect themselves in the future. www.piriform.com

oh... make sure you uncheck the boxes that ask for authorization for adding the tool bars after the licence authorization window. You do not need them or want them. This is now a common practice with most downloads today!

Run this weekly or when things start to slow down on your computer or computer acts wierd. :) This will save one up to 80.00 bucks having to take their computers in to have repaired unnecessarily like others had done today and told they had hundreds of viruses "NOT" Takes only 5 minutes people.

Make sure your anti virus is up to date as it will catch and notify you of any real viruses on your system. Malware and Viruses are two different animals and you need "a" programe for each on your systems! AVG has a free antivirus that they offer. The reason they offer it "free" is because it "assists" in decreasing the spead of virus to its corporate clients. a smart move and a preventive measure on their part! The paid vs offers more utilities but can slow down some computers.The reason being that they tend to conflict with those Microsoft already has built into it. The the spyware/malware and antivirus programs discussed here are in additio. Keep it simple and do not double up on programs as you can get conflicts from them fighting to take control and only compound your headaches and find out that they are not working as they should :)

Scott, that's what I keep reading as well... Kaspersky Internet Security is not only the stand-alone Kaspersky anti-virus utility, but a complete malware suite as well.
Good stuff.

x3, Kaspersky is consistently rated in the top 5 in just about any AV or Malware suite tests. I use it as well. If you are looking for something free take a look at AVG they are pretty good as well, though offer a paid version as well with more features.

The other concern in this particular situation seeing that you followed through with the transaction is whether they now have your amex # which would be obtained via "key logger" (identity theft) . So it would be prudent to contact Amex in this regard and watch for transactions that you have no knowledge of.

As a further note when these windows pop up it is their intention to get the users to click on the window and more importantly the "X" close window box. Clicking on any part of these windows will launch the intended programe. The way around handling pop up's is to avoid clicking on any part avoiding the urge to do so like the plauge but instead close the window out from your task bar at the bottom , right click on the program in the task bar and hit close!

This will prevent the programe from activating and loading onto your system. just an ounce of prevention for future notice.

KAV is damn good, even back in the days of AVP V 3. (before got renamed KAV and win 95)
The big issue I have is how bloated ALL these modern VS are, all the wings and whistles.....like a 'basic modern car' with ABS, Air con, elec windows /seats, remote trunk lock etc....bloated , memory hungry and make for columberson machine.
All built for those who need to visit porn , underground sites and into pirate material....
And written by programers who have no idea of the needs of the end user and just interested in showing off their skills BS.

I could not agree more Steptoe but it is difficult for the average user to know this and they listen to the neighbour or friend that have no idea what is really going on with these internet security packages! :( One can only advise them against it and let them post the usuall problems associated with them and hope they catch on sooner than later! :)

Users can be there own worst enemies when it comes to this stuff. However if they are oblivious to it and are happy then rock on! There are just way better alternatives once one understands and investigates what these utility suites actually do to ones system and performance!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I already have MS Essentials. It did not stop it. As for the Am X card. I cancelled that card and received a replacement card. I seem to be ok for now. I think ? But I have been redirected to another site several times trying to access this site (Team Camaro). Thanks again.

your not alone DT i had a number of friends call me yesterday about the same malware hitting their systems! One can run a good malware programe and get rid of it. CCleaner is excellent and its free for those that wish to get rid of this and protect themselves in the future. www.piriform.com

oh... make sure you uncheck the boxes that ask for authorization for adding the tool bars after the licence authorization window. You do not need them or want them. This is now a common practice with most downloads today!

Run this weekly or when things start to slow down on your computer or computer acts wierd. :) This will save one up to 100.00 bucks having to take their computers in to have repaired unnecessarily and told they had hundreds of viruses "NOT" Takes only 5 minutes.

Make sure your anti virus is up to date as it will catch and notify you of any real viruses on your system. Malware and Viruses are two different animals and you need "a" programe for each on your systems! AVG has a free antivirus that they offer. The reason they offer it "free" is because it "assists" in decreasing the spead of virus to its corporate clients. a smart move and a preventive measure on their part! The paid vs offers more utilities but can slow down some computers.The reason being that they tend to conflict with those Microsoft already has built into it. The the spyware/malware and antivirus programs discussed here are in additio. Keep it simple and do not double up on programs as you can get conflicts from them fighting to take control and only compound your headaches and find out that they are not working as they should :)

Thanks Chris. I tried it. Lets see what happens??

No problem and No microsoft essentials will not get rid of it! Wife just got home from work at lunch and told me 5 friends got it at her work and took it into the computer store to fix $80.00 each WOW....... such criminals still exist i guess! Take the 10 minutes needed people and fix it yourself!

Wow, add that up, 49.95 each if your fooled by the scam and you pay online. Big bucks!!!!

Also running Firefox with the NoScript add-on, really helps a lot to protect one from malicious internet software.

Boot to safe mode, run aft cleaner, run malwarebytes with the latest update, run combo fix after that.

We use and install trend micro av products. Most of this stuff gets on via infected ads on websites.

Scott

x4 on Kaspersky. Easy to use. Works great.

I use the newest version of firefox and have ran Kaspersky since '09, it's been great but I recently got a Phishing virus even with just having upgraded, I later read online that Kaspersky may not be the best Anti-virus program to run with Microsoft Silverlight, it's been good so far, but now everytime I go into control panel it acts weird when trying to change certain things, when trying to delete passwords it will begin to delete, then switch to a spoofed window that actually deletes the phishing filter from the computer.
If you've got Kaspersky and windows vista or 7, I'd run another trusted phishing filter (on top of Kaspersky).
I'm almost positive I got the virus through the newest version of Adobe, I hate adobe.
Overall, one virus that I know of in a span of 2 years is pretty good in my book.

I use the newest version of firefox and have ran Kaspersky since '09, it's been great but I recently got a Phishing virus even with just having upgraded, I later read online that Kaspersky may not be the best Anti-virus program to run with Microsoft Silverlight, it's been good so far, but now everytime I go into control panel it acts weird when trying to change certain things, when trying to delete passwords it will begin to delete, then switch to a spoofed window that actually deletes the phishing filter from the computer.
If you've got Kaspersky and windows vista or 7, I'd run another trusted phishing filter (on top of Kaspersky).
I'm almost positive I got the virus through the newest version of Adobe, I hate adobe.
Overall, one virus that I know of in a span of 2 years is pretty good in my book.


I use NOD 32 anti-virus.. Ive found it to work great here, ive tried some others But ive found NOD works the best. Just a suggestion here... I did or should say a friend sent me a link that had the rated anti-virus programs, it didn't come from NOD its been awhile and things could have changed. It was rated at that time # 1 with Norton second. I thought i would add this for any interested.. I also use Firefox and have always thought it to be the best browser there is, the newest version does not carry the add-on for Photo-Bucket so i went back to the one just before the newest which i think was version 4.. Just some ideas for any interested. hope it helps.. Ron

Malwarebytes user here. I haven't found anything better yet. http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Malwarebytes user here. I haven't found anything better yet. http://www.malwarebytes.org/


Rod, do you use the paid version or the free version? I ask because I only use the passive on demand scan free version and got something a couple of months ago that it wouldn't fix (the paid active version may have stopped it though, don't know).....nor would three or four scanners I used. My free Threatfire app caught it when it initially popped off but didn't keep it from getting in my root directory which kept the computer from booting. I attached the hard drive to another computer for scanning and what finally got it was the ESET free online scanner. I've only had an issue maybe twice in the last several years but think I may go ahead and pay for ESET.
http://www.eset.com/us/

I think the malware and virus creators come out with so much crap now that there probably isn't one app that works for everything but instead you have to rely on a couple or a few.

I had the same virus infect three different computers. It starts by saying you have a hard drive error and to reboot. Two I was able to fix with combofix the third, combofix seemed to remove the virus but there were so many other errors I just did a fresh reinstall of the OS. All of these computers had antivirus on them. 1 had Norton and 2 had Avira. None of the AV programs ever made a peep when the infection occurred.
Its kind of scary because two of these computers were my office computers.Luckily nothing got on our server. I went ahead and bought Trend Micro Titanium. Hopefully that will work for future infections.

Its called a scare-ware program but Malwarebytes in safe mode will nuke it. Its a router hopper virus so there is no real protection against hitting it. It has several names and infects both MAC and Windows systems and tries to look like a legit virus scanning program and makes me a lot of money cleaning machines once infected with it.

You should install and update Malwarebytes from C-Net's DOWNLOAD.COM NOW before you are infected. Its free and does the job nicely. Otherwise you may need to download on an uninfected machine to install it after you are.

The secret with this virus is NOT TO CLICK ANYTHING on the box if you do get it. Just pull the plug to power off the machine ASAP. On a laptop you will need to pull the plug and quickly pull the battery.

Clicking anywhere on the windows box installs the Trojan including the X to close.

Once installed it disables your virus protection, and redirects your internet settings to a proxy server that would prevent you from downloading any cleaners or getting removal information. You will need to copy and rename any cleaner as the virus won't let any legit cleaner run.

It will then tell you are under attack, loaded with viruses and you need to pay and download a cleaner. This action will put a reoccurring monthly charge on that credit card to a firm in Hong Kong so whatever you do DO NOT enter any credit card information.

To clean your machine if you have already installed and updated Malwarebytes on a regular basis - power-up and hold the F8 key to enter safe mode in windows. Select safe mode with networking and then click on my computer and go to your program files, then malwarebytes folder, and copy and paste mbam.exe to the same folder. Now rename the copy anything ending in a dot com not dot exe. Once renamed click and run the dot com version of Malwarebytes and it should find three parts of this virus.

After you run it will ask to reboot, do so and if you can surf you are ok. If you cant check your internet connection in control panel and uncheck the proxy settings. This should return you to your real internet settings.

Its called a scare-ware program but Malwarebytes in safe mode will nuke it.
So will smith fix in safe mode....
Had a few machines come in in the last week infected with the new "Malware Protector"
Secret with this is simply enter a ewmail code, and a SN one can get off the net....then disable and delete defender.exe in /doc&settings/ .....application data/
And clean up the registry.
Or use smith fix.
It is to be noted these machines have had symantic, AVG, KAV....and 2 also used firefox.
Have not had an infection with MS security essentuals.....the one I now highly recommend for customers.

Even in safe mode I was not able to run Malwarebytes. I would get access denied messages. I got combofix to run after several attempts. It said it was bootloader or bootstrap virus, I forget which. I was able to get the virus off the machines but the after effects where to much to handle. My restore feature was disabled and I could not get it to work. I had a bunch of unfound DLL messages popping up. Whenever I tired to install or uninstall any programs or delete certain files I was getting unauthorized access type messages. A lot of my files were changed to hidden files. All my desktop icons were dimmed out because they where changed to hidden files. I was able to remove any files I needed off the machine so it was easier to just reformat and install the OS. I will try pulling the plug next time.

Does the free version of Malware bytes protect real time? I got the impression that it just works when you run it.

I clean computers for my job so that means everyone that knows me and including family hits me up for free work, so I put all the best and free stuff on one page for anyone to find in one location.

these are some of the ones mentioned above and these beat all the programs my company has purchased for me over the years.

you can find them HERE (http://www.greatplainsriders.com/smf/index.php?action=downloads;cat=2)

Thanks for the list.
Nice site and nice snow in 2009.