Computer had a virus

[pomtzu]

Well - I thought I was toasted yesterday. I had all kinds of Windows warnings saying that I was infected by an internet virus and did I want to run a scan. No! Then I kept getting more warnings and IE kept popping up with a porn site. I don't even use IE, I use Firefox. I ran a system scan hoping that it could be found but with no luck. Now I'm really starting to panic. As soon as I closed any warning message, a couple of different ones would pop up. It was working fine on Saturday.

I never click on any links in emails and don't go to a lot of funky sites. The only thing that I did different last week was to uninstall Norton and install Avast, so I'm thinking something had to have gotten thru there.

Time to call in the big guns - thank goodness my son knows computers inside and out - but at first he wasn't having any luck either. It wouldn't even let him install another spyware program or do a system restore. Finally after much fuming, he was able to do a system restore back to Dec 31st, and installed AVG. It's up and running fine now with no more problems. When he has time, he's going to give it a thorough cleanup

This is the first time I've ever been infected, and I sure hope it's the last. I just can't figure how it managed to get me!!! That was too close for comfort!

[Medusa]

I've had Norton, AVG, Trend Micro, etc. and still managed to get viruses anyhow. Norton was the worst, however. Even the Norton was corrupt! LOL Glad that all is well w/your pc now. It's a real pain when a virus creeps in.

[lvpets2002]

I know I hate it when my computer tries to whoopp my butt.. Now I love it when I get the upper hand.. Now I have used Norton & McAfee & with both got bad infected virusess.. I only will use WebRoot for Protection.. A computer geek got me started on that soft ware about 5 yrs ago & I love it.. I have not had any problems since..

[kokopup]

I have had the popup that says you have been infected do you want to scan,
and if you click on any part of this popup it will install a trojan on your computer that is almost impossible to escape. Unless you can do a system restore to a previous date, you will have to reformat your harddrive and reinstall your OS. I was infected with one of these off facebook about 6 months ago and it took me over a week to recover. I recently went to a site and as soon as the site came up I got that popup. I promptly did a "CrtL-alt-del" and stopped all applications then I rebooted. I wasn't taking any chances. They make these popups look just like the a real warning.

[Freedom]

Thank goodness you go out of that mess! We need you here on PT, lol.

Kokopup, I've seen that false message as well. Can't remember what I did to get out of it, but I remember it took me some time.

[Catty1]

If that happens again, restart RIGHT AWAY, keep pressing F8 like crazy when it starts back up, choose "Safe Mode with Networking".

Then download from www.malwarebytes.org and run it!

It is often possible to boot into Safe Mode when you can't start up normally.

Those crazy popup screens are called Rogue Spyware...pretty tame name considering what they do!

[Laura's Babies]

That one is making the rounds! I know 3 people that have had it and it tried to get into mine yesterday but Avast stopped it. I immediately ran Malwarebytes, spybot and then Avast to make sure Avast stopped it early enough. Had I not known about it already, I would have let it scan my computer since it seems so real!

[smokey the elder]

If that happens again, restart RIGHT AWAY, keep pressing F8 like crazy when it starts back up, choose "Safe Mode with Networking".

Then download from www.malwarebytes.org and run it!

It is often possible to boot into Safe Mode when you can't start up normally.

Those crazy popup screens are called Rogue Spyware...pretty tame name considering what they do!

I got attacked by one of these at work, and they used the Malwarebytes program to eradicate it.

[Trinityagain]

That one is making the rounds! I know 3 people that have had it and it tried to get into mine yesterday but Avast stopped it. I immediately ran Malwarebytes, spybot and then Avast to make sure Avast stopped it early enough. Had I not known about it already, I would have let it scan my computer since it seems so real!

Laura, Make it 4 people. We got hit on our home computer last night. So I brought it into work with me for the IT guys to clean it up. I figured that was a good plan as one of them built it! So we will be without a computer at home for a few days...