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Malware-virus

Deaton Design

New Member
Got a bad virus-malware on my shop computer yesterday. Antivirus soft is what its called. Takes over your computer so that nothing will open up except your browser, but it wont let you download anything. It looks like an ad for antivirus software, but its not. Just keeps popping up like its doing a scan, then wants you to go to a site and purchase a license. Took me several hours to get it off, most of that using Malwarebytes to scan the computer in safe mode. It found quite a few trojans and some other adware, plus the antivirus soft crap. Removed it all and everything was fine. Weird thing is, I was on a site checking prices of bumper stickers when it all started. Hadnt been on anything else other than here and email before that. I have AVG running and updated, and it missed it. Dont want it again, thats for sure.
 

weaselboogie

New Member
A friend of mine just called me last week about this one ( or something similar ). It was a fake virus scanner and after a lot of suggestions (task manager was disabled, browser was disabled, couldn't download ANYTHING, wouldn't allow you to run anything from your cdrom, couldn't system restore) we found that you could do the taskmanager if you did the ran it WHILE the computer was starting up and before this fake virus scanner had a chance to start. Ended the fake virus scanner before it started and was able to download and run malwarebytes.

The funniest and most amazing thing that I read was that people actually SUGGESTED to go ahead and give the program your CREDIT CARD to make the program go away.
 

G-Artist

New Member
I run AVG as well.

AVG and all its kin check for viruses. Malware, under a dozen different names/terminology are not viruses, per se. Therefore they are rarely caught by an anti-virus program.

You could have an anti-malware program open as well. That should not conflict with an anti-virus program.

None of our critical computers have Internet access. When transfer of files are needed, we use a USB stick.

You can get malware from many legit Websites. Complicated to explain the inner workings but even Google has distributed that stuff unknowingly. To minimize that use something like Ad Muncher or keep an anti-malware program running while surfing.
 

choucove

New Member
This sounds like a variant of the smitfraud/virtumonde viruses. There have been quite a few posts about this virus threat on this forum recently, as it has become quite frequently seen. One thing that separates this virus from some others is not only its slightly more difficult means of removal, but that it is being received through a vast types of websites. Seemingly "safe" sites even, such as Facebook and Google, are spreading the viruses rampant.
 

Techman

New Member
A site that hand out this crap has not updated its java console server and is compromised. It allows this crap into your machine.
 

RJ California

New Member
Techman helped me through one of these terrible things a few months ago. I hope there is a special place in Hell for the creators of these vicious viruses!
 

cartoad

New Member
Sounds like what we got on my machine here on Thursday night, same story, our tech was able to get it "cured" but took all of Friday am, before we got to use the computer again. The people who dream these up should be drawn and quartered, brought back and done to again!!!!!!!
 

Alphonse43

New Member
Had simular here, I run AVG anti-virus & firewall. AVG sent me a small diagnostic program too send the results back to them, I was told to delete AVG and re-install, and it just got worse from there. I found 2 viruses AVG could not remove or heal, so I've just done a full format.
You forget just how much of a job it is to relaod everything back, Windows, re-register, update service pack, motherboard drivers, DirectX, Internet conection, anti-virus, the list goes on. Last week I bought what I thought too be a genuine Kingston 32GB USB drive at a market, which turned out to be a fake drive. I don't know for sure that's where the viruses came from, but it's very likely the case.
Alphonse43
 

choucove

New Member
Last week I bought what I thought too be a genuine Kingston 32GB USB drive at a market, which turned out to be a fake drive.

This could be a source of the virus, but if it is of the smitfraud/virtumonde variant it was most likely just from searching any plain website, didn't have to be an 'untrusted' website.

I read a news article only just this week about fake Kingston memory cards and flash drives that were being sold (and while there were other brands guilty of this as well, Kingston is the biggest name and is catching some major issues for it.) It seems that some of these manufacturers are running a sort of ghost shift where all memory chips produced during this time is off the record by hidden supervisors which output faulty or even downright fake products and then put them into legitimate retail packaging and send of to sell as a legitimate working item. It is then leaving the middle man (the retailer) to foot the replacement expense with a working piece of merchandise. Some brands have been found to have as many as 1 in 10 flash memory devices being faulty or fake.
 

Alphonse43

New Member
Choucove, the packaging looked like it was a legitimate product, all the seals and logos all appeared to be OK. I have another genuine Kingston USB drive and compairing the two, the cases are slightly different. The font used on the case logos are different, the four small holes on metal USB conection are also different. I'll certainly be hoping too catch up with the seller in the not too distant future, chances are it will a long wait.
Alphonse43
 

Alphonse43

New Member
I have still got problems with AVG 9.0, I can't load Mozilla Thunderbird with AVG's e-mail scanner on, and now Mozilla also keeps dropping out. AVG's support team have been looking into it for a few days now with no answers. I'm about to change my anti-virus, does anyone have any suggestions for a better program?, I don't care if it's free or I pay for it as long as I get top protection.

Alphonse43
 

choucove

New Member
I have still got problems with AVG 9.0, I can't load Mozilla Thunderbird with AVG's e-mail scanner on, and now Mozilla also keeps dropping out. AVG's support team have been looking into it for a few days now with no answers. I'm about to change my anti-virus, does anyone have any suggestions for a better program?, I don't care if it's free or I pay for it as long as I get top protection.

Alphonse43

I have been using Avast! Anti-Virus for over five years now and never have had a thing to complain about. It's ranked much better than many of the other antivirus applications such as McAfee and Norton, even AVG. It even has a free license version. As an example of how I depend on it so much, I have installed it on every computer that has been infected with this smitfraud virus and removed the issue without much hassle. Even when those infected computers had McAfee or Norton (which could not catch the virus), Avast was able to get rid of it.
 

J Hill Designs

New Member
combofix cleared it up in 15 minutes - I didn't even have to reboot into safemode...I used an already installed version of apple's safari for windows (as the virus took control of firefox) to download combofix - had to use taskmanager to stop av.exe like 10 times - ran combofix and byebye
 
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