WARNING! I had a "trojan virus" pop up this morning on my computer

[MoonandBean]

Hi friends,

I am posting to warn you of a computer virus that ruined my morning and made me late for work. I was playing on facebook for 2 minutes this morning while waiting for coffee to finish brewing (serves me right, I should have been playing with Sunny...LOL!) and a very official message that looked like it was from "windows" popped up and said "your computer is at risk and has been infected with the Trojan virus". I don't remember the sequence of events but I did end up clicking on the "run scan" button and then ended up with this "Personal Antivirus" program along the icons on the bottom of my computer. I realized it was a SCAM when I was asked to enter credit card info. and "googled" it and saw dozens of stories that sounded exactly the same. I ran my own antivirus scan and have no viruses. I feel stupid for clicking but people have said once it pops up, there's no way to prevent it from running (?). I can't uninstall the program the regular way and am looking into ways to remove it. One of my co-workers gave me a "spyware removal program" so I will look into that. I know I'm not "infected" with a real virus but this "personal antivirus" program feels pretty virusy in it's own right in that it constantly pops up and gives warnings and is very annoying. I had my pop up blocker turned on and I do have webroot spysweeper so I"m not sure why this happened. I don't know if facebook is at all involved or just what I happened to be doing at the time it appeared. I just wanted to warn all my friends NOT to click on anything if you get this pop up. Shut down your computer. Unplug it. And then re-boot. Hopefully, I can prevent some of you from a ruined cup of coffee :)

Deb

[Catty1]

Here's a link to help for Vista:

http://www.windowsvistaplace.com/antivirus2009-antivirus-2009-removal-instructions/spyware-removal

http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal/antivirus2009-antivirus-2009-removal-instructions

Another good hint - you run a Kaspersky scan or whatever. The bad files will show up. But instead of paying Kaspersky etc to remove them, you find the files yourself.

Each link contains detailed instructions on how to remove the affected files. Takes a while, but is the very affordable way to do it! :)

[king2005]

Rule # 1.
Never click on ANY Facebook ad, banner or warning. Most are scams of some sort.

Download Spybot (anti spyware) & Avast Anti Virus. If you have anything, those 2 programs are more then likely to find it. + they are both free.

[Catty1]

Also, Malwarebytes.org has a free program that targets the "bad guys" in the computer.

Whatever you use, the sooner you attack this thing, the better.

[MoonandBean]

Thank You! I think I'll bring it into the geek squad tomorrow morning just to be safe and let them do it. I tend to make more of a mess of things :)

[smokey the elder]

That same message came up at work! I contacted IT and they took care of it. (I didn't click on it.)

[MoonandBean]

That same message came up at work! I contacted IT and they took care of it. (I didn't click on it.)


Yes...even though it happened at home, the IT guy here at work is slapping me upside the head. He says I should know better. We are so trained at work not to click on anything but I let my guard down at home :(

[Hellow]

I laugh whenever those things pop up due to the fact that I use Linux.

Also, its not a popup at all. Its embedded into the web page, so your popup blocker cannot block it.