Antivirus Pro
By: marky in Apple & Malware & Microsoft & Virus & bad form & bullshit & linux
I sent this email out to the staff of my $DAYJOB.
As of late the Technicians of the world have been overrun with some malware called “Antivirus Pro”. It is delevered via a flash banner with Java embedded that runs when you close the popup. Then demands your credit card to remove the virus that it self installed. If you pay them it merely keeps the self-installed rootkit dormant until your subscription has run out. DON’T PAY THEM!!!
These ads primarily come from social networking sites i.e. Twitter, facebook, etc… No, I am not saying stay off these sites. I am simply saying be aware of what you click on when in these sites, and what to do if/when you get it.
If you get this on your computer please do the following in this order.
1. Turn off your computer – Yes just by keeping your turned on you can make it worse.
2. Get it to your friendly neighbor hood Tech immediately – The sooner they get it the better chance they have of removing it. (these programs deploy their bugs based on time, they get worse and more malicious as time passes.)Now assuming you don’t have the bug already, install Spybot Search and Destroy (do a Google search you will find it) and install it. Make sure you install “tea timer”. It will give you an annoying popup everytime your comptuer does something that is going to affect the system. 99 out of 100 times it will be you agreeing that you did indeed intend for something to happen. That 1 out of 100 that it saves all the data on your computer, will be worth the annoying B.S. that it will put you though other times. Take the time to update Spybot once a week and be sure to immunize Spybot when you update it.
Spybot will help defend you from these types of bugs along side of your anti-virus software. Another course of action is to upgrade your Operating System. Lets face it guys, XP is 10 years old. Vista isn’t scary anymore, and it works pretty well. Windows 7 (october 22nd) is even better, and they are immune to this particular bug, as well as a host of others that basically hijack your machine. Vista and 7 are about as secure as you can ask for.
What is funny is the amount of flame I got back for trying to help Touting how awesome Apple is. I simply sent back this link
My long time colleques and friends are Preferred Apple users. I personally have nothing against Apple, and feel that it is perfectly fine. I am just tired of the B.S. propaganda that Apple does something different that a Windows or Linux machine does. /sigh like I can change the way the world thinks.
On a side note, Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware does a great job of cleaning the inital Anti-Virus Pro, and then a follow up of Spybot is just awesome.
