Malware

[Dianne C. Tillman]

I have a computer on which a malware program has been installed and I cannot seem to get rid of it.  The program is Antivirus Soft, a scam program that tells you your machine is infected and then tells you to purchase their software to fix everything, blah, blah, you know the routine.  I have run the Microsoft Malicious software scan and Lightspeed Security Agent scan and neither of them detects it.  The malware prevents any programs from being opened or run (the only way to run anything is in Safe Mode).  Any suggestions?

[Valerie Truscinski]

Too funny....I just removed this from a computer this morning. If you go to the following and follow the instructions, it WILL remove it. I have used MalwareBytes in the past so I can verify that it is legitimate and works well. Good Luck! (Be sure that you don't skip the part where it tells you to go into IE and change the proxy settings - that is the trick to removing it)

http://www.geekpolice.net/malware-removal-guides-f12/how-to-remove-...

[Keith Nelson]

Diane,

Had this happen yesterday. Followed these steps in this article to cure it.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-antivirus-soft


The only thing I did different is to login as the user who had the issue. I did it once as local admin and it didn't seem to catch it all. The machine seems fine now. I would bet they got it from the Star Tribune site yesterday, I know of many people this affected. The article about the Attack from the tribune is here.

http://it.tmcnet.com/news/2010/02/22/4636320.htm

Keith

[Brian Norman]

MalwareBytes always saves the day for me.

[Dianne C. Tillman]

Thank you to everyone who replied with helpful suggestions. I had tried Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware earlier without success but I had omitted the step about the proxy server in IE. I tried again and all the baddies are now gone. Thank you!