Don’t fall for XP (or Vista) Antivirus Pro!!

It looks bad and I should have grabbed some screenshots but DON’T FALL FOR IT!

What happens is you’ll be surfing the web and suddenly a pop up appears in your task bar that looks legit and states that your computer is being attacked. A pop up will look like it’s scanning your system and will “report” a few dozen bogus infections. What it does is install itself on to your system and will re-direct your browser to the website that claims it will fix your computer. Don’t go to the website! From everything I’ve read online about this malware, the whois info shows it’s in the Ukraine and others have mentioned that the website itself is dangerous to go to.

When it popped up on my system I assumed it was much like the other one that I’ve seen and known people to fall for. It’s not. It won’t let you open some of your exe files. Your system runs slowly and if you ignore it not only will you deal with pop-ups, you run the risk of having your information compromised.

Most sites that discuss this POS malware suggest malwarebytes, you can download it for free at www.malwarebytes.org. I had to download it from another computer and it took a while to get it to install since the Antivirus Pro malware was affecting my ability to run exe programs. Some suggest that a more vicious version specifically affects the ability to run malwarebytes because it’s said to be the most successful at removing it.

I’ve installed it to my laptop which hasn’t seen the malware yet so I’m prepared.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 7:52 PM and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.