Call the help desk.
Posted on 04/16/2010 10:14:36 AM PDT by big black dog
From somewhere, this horrible rogue "antivirus" software called XP Smart Security is managing to install itself. It completely takes over my system and won't let me do anything while constantly displaying messages that I should purchase their scam product to clean up my computer.
The only way I can get rid of it is to completely wipe out my hard drive and then reinstall the operating system. However, even after I do this, I can't access the "add or remove programs" section in the control panel.
And a few days later, this scam software shows up again and I have to go through the process all over again.
I have Norton antivirus but this crap keeps getting through anyway.
This is driving me nuts.
My daughter got the same thing yesterday. This thread may be useful when I get home.
This happened to me about 1 yr ago... Nothing worked till my husband just reset the computer back to its original settings....this is sad because you may lose stuff (but you can save it before the reset)
After that he installed WeBRoot Antivirus which has been the best one I’ve ever had ...at the time I got hit with the virus you have I had Norton and it didn’t stop it....but the Webroot Antivirus program I have now has actually stopped things from being automatically downloaded and I’ve never had the problem again. The geeksquad guy at Best Buy told us it’s the best one ....
Good Luck
I know how horrible it is
Do the following:
1. restart your computer, while restarting, press and hold down the F8 key. If you hear a clicking sound, release the key and immediately press it down again. Repeat until you get to a screen that lists a number of options.
2. Select start in Safe Mode with networking,
3. On boot select the account named administrator.
4. After startup, go online and download the following programs to your destop: RKILL http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/grinler/rkill.exe”;
MALWAREBYTES: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
5. Run RKILL it will stop the processes
6. Run Combofix, it will install the recovery console and update itself.
7 After that install and run Malwarebytes in quickscan. that should remove the problem and fix the registry.
8. Later that evening run a complete scan with Malwarebytes
If you can’t get into the administrator account, download these files from another computer and copy them to the desktop. If you can, start in safe mode, log in to the computer and as soon as you can run rkill, continue to try running it as soon as you see your desktop. it will kill the process and you can proceed from there.
if you are using XP then you should use the Restore utility to roll your system back to before you noticed the symptoms. Unless you disabled that utility you should be OK.
I fought it for months before giving up. It disables all attempts to get help including microsoft, the antivirus update, lava soft, etc.
The only hope was wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows. :(
It is truly bad. I did away with Internet Explorer and use only Firefox now.
A friend of mine got this a few days ago. A utility called ‘Combofix’ pretty much cleaned it up.
You can get it here (free) with instructions:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix
Please heed the WARNINGS on the page! If you are not that computer savvy, I would highly recommend asking someone who is to download and run it for you.
You may also need to run the Malwarebytes spyware scanner to remove the reminants, after Combofix clears out most of it. There are several places you can download Malwarebytes for free.
ping & bump fyi
bookmark
Main screen turn on.
Beeber set to stune?
Your link....http://www.2-viruses.com/remove-xp-smart-security-2010.... was blocked as a fraud site by my Avira Premium Security Suite considers the site malware. I’m not going to bother to try and override it.
Yep.
Especially if you have kids ;)
There’s still some “catching up” on Windoze patches, virus definitions, etc, but the time you save is considerable.
Call the help desk.
Bump for reference to XP Smart Security.
create a new user which is an administrator and log in under that name, then download and run “malwarebytes”.
It’s free.
If so, replace the hard drive with a new one, install the OS and then restore your data. No more virus.
Is this the one you got rid of? If so, how did you do it?
bttt
Good luck with Firefox. This happened to me about a year ago and it was a pain to get rid of. Several of my collegues were also infected and they used only Firefox. Beware of the hype that one browser is safer than another because they all have vulnerabilities.
Yes, there are variations of these browser hijacking viruses claiming to be “security” software.
They can take over Firefox as well as IE.
And they get “protective”. You may find increasing levels of restriction on your system:
Inability to “add/remove” programs
Inability to edit folder options
Inability to edit registry
Inability to show hidden files
Deleting your virus scanning software proactively
While you can get it operational, once your system has been compromised, you may still have to manually restore each bit of OS functionality you have been configured out of. And your system is being used against you.
A full system install (not restore) should address the issue. Depends on how much time you have to spend with it.
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