Learn To Avoid Costly Virus Scam
Many of the worst virus infections your PC could get will be loaded voluntarily onto your computer – by YOU!
Unless you know what to look for and don’t make panic decisions.
If you use the free antivirus program Microsoft Security Essentials like I do, know that it will NOT prompt you to go online and scan or load other programs, as described in this sound advice from BleepingComputer.
Also, know what kind of behavior is WRONG, like what I encountered this morning at a legitimate site that was obviously hacked.
Just seconds after landing at the site another Firefox browser window opened with the title “Antivirus 2012”. Antivirus, followed by a year, has been one of the nastiest, most prevalent, viruses of recent years and it always seems to start by fooling you into thinking you have a virus.
While this was a little different, as I immediately clicked the close window button, it displayed a pop up trying to get me to stay on the page and also prompt me to download a executable file that I think was called “filescan.exe”. I cancelled naturally, but Firefox had started “buffering” the download already.
Microsoft Security Essentials moments later noticed the file in my temp directory, and prompted me to remove the SEVERE threat, which I told it to do. (Another reason to periodically look into, and clean out, your temp directory.)
Afterward I ran TDSKiller and MalwareBytes scan – both updating to latest versions – and they both came up clean.
Additional Warning From Guru Bill Myers
Coincidentally, the weekly free e-letter from Bill Myers Online (Product Developer Resource Center) had a similar warning about nasty virus scams that start out by tricking you into installing the virus – then blackmailing you to buy the antidote from them!
Here is what Bill had to say:
There’s a new virus in town, and it’s one of the worst ever.
With this virus, you don’t have to download anything. All you need to do is visit a web site that has the virus on it.
The virus will pop up a very realistic message saying ‘virus detected’ which looks like it’s from your own virus program – and if you do anything other than turn off your computer, it will become infected.
Immediately upon infection, your computer desktop will be replaced with a black screen, all your program icons, favorites, drive letters, and file directories will disappear.
And just as you are about to give up, and screen pops up telling you the solution is to buy s.m.a.r.t cleaner – a program created by the same company that put the virus on your computer.
If you don’t buy their cleaner program, you will be stuck.
I ran into this virus yesterday. And even though I have real time virus protection and a firewall on my computer, it still was infected. The infection means is through a javascript on a site I visited as a result of a google search for ‘templates’.
It took me more than 10 hours to remove the virus and recover all the deleted files.
The reason I’m mentioning this is since it is almost impossible to not get this virus (even if using a mac), it is a good idea to make a restore point for your computer today.
That way if you do get this very nasty virus, you’ll have a way to get back to your currently clean system.
In the meantime, be very careful about what sites you visit. And be sure you have updated your latest virus definitions, and have applied the latest java updates to your computer.
And if you visit a site and see the message below, don’t click on the message. Instead, exit all programs and turn off your computer. Then when you turn it back on, do a full virus scan.
Here is the screenshot:
Bill is good about giving out all kinds of useful computer advice, even though his specialty is video production and product creation.
You can sign up for his free weekly tips newsletter, tip of the week videos, or learn more about his membership site at Bill Myers Online
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