It is very scary and seems like a hopeless situation, since it won't let anything run, including the task manager. However, I had immediate success using the advice of this article, which I read Friday from my work computer. I put the SUPERAntiSpyware product linked in the article on a thumbdrive and ran it while I was disconnected from the internet. I can't make an expert recommendation, but I did have success.
I didn't run in safe mode, but followed a tip I read in a long list of comments at How To Geek. With "Antivirus Live" infection, you have a 20 or 30 second grace period after Windows XP boot where you can bring up the task manager and see the malware initializer running as XXXXsysguard.exe ( XXXX is a variable alphameric string. ) I was able to kill it from the task manager, and it didn't come back while I installed and ran SUPERAntiSpyware from the thumbdrive, and by all appearances I am rid of the thing, but you never know! I was certainly pleased by the apparent quick and easy success after the many dire accounts of its tenacity, so I just thought I'd share this experience with FR.
This seems like a pretty widespread problem, but maybe that's just because I got it.
bookmark
Thats been around a while, going by a lot of different names. It has also had a variant pretending to be Windows Defender and other things.
My niece got one and it took me a couple of hours to root it out and kill it. My real anti-virus was able to finally catch it on mine and qurantine it.
malwarebytes- free upload
/mark
my wife’s PC caught this form of comuter clap. It is now at the shop beng repaired. Had a partial fix in place with the thumb drive solution discussed, told her to stay off the internet and lo and behold, she tries to email someone and the thing crashed....
$^%$^%&%@@#
I received it last year. I was eventually able to clean out the virus. It appeared again last week and tried to install. I stopped the installation by immediately shutting down my PC. I restarted without any problems.
@dr_lew: Thanks for this article and advise. My PC got killed this week by the very same virus. The problem is that it blocks your access to the internet and control panel so you can’t get any help. Can you elaborate on how you killed it once you booted the computer back up. Thanks in advance.
Had quite a time booting into safe mode with my wireless kbd.
bttt
I got it twice first time i got rid of it,second time bombarded with all you had plus viagra and porn pop ups..
Called wife at work she asked the IT guy what to do,download Spybot search and destroy for free,cannot remember what site but i am sure if you google it it will show..
Finally go online thru Mozilla Firefox,oh yeah AVG for a free anti-virus.
Not had a problem in 2 years..
My PC caught this crap about two weeks ago (think my kid clicked on something). I ran Microsoft Security Essentials AND Avast and wiped it out.
I was on the same site, and the same thing happened to me too. However, my McAfee caught it. So no issues over here.
Bookmarking for future reference if needed! Thanks
When someone is determined to have created and released malware or virii like this into the wild, they really should face life in prison without parole.
So far I’ve managed to avoid any truly nasty infections, but even the lesser ones I’ve dealt with have left me wanting to cause grievous bodily harm to the scum who wrote it.
ping
My wifes computer caught this and it was a nightmare. finally I booted up in safe mode and was able to run system restore. Then I ran a complete virus/malware scan. That got rid of it.
I just got my computer back from the shop after getting this nasty thing.
Tried to shut down but wasn’t fast enough.
What a mess!
Thought my McAfee would have stopped it - it didn’t.