Total Security Antivirus Removal
Total Security Antivirus is another rogue security application that poses as legitimate antivirus software to dupe people into installing and then paying for it. It is related to Antivirus 360 and is perhaps the followup software from the same group. This particular pest is possibly installing itself onto systems by way of a trojan or via browser exploits. Total Security also tries to imitate the Windows Security Center. (Not exactly what you would expect from a reputable antivirus package.) Another variant of Total Security Antivirus is Total Security 2009. So, how do you proceed with Total security removal?
This pest (total security antivirus) will typically run when the system boots and discover all sorts of infections that it claims (non are legit.) It uses these infections as proof that you need to purchase the program to fix the problems.
For manual removal you will likely need to use the task manager ( ctrl-alt-del ) to kill off any running processes that are related to total security. To kill of the following processes is essential to total security removal
Probably uninstall.exe and tsc.exe
If you are unable to delete them after killing the running processes, you may be able to delete the following files by booting into safe mode:
%Win%\system32\winsource.dll
%User%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\TSC.lnk
%User%\Desktop\TSC.lnk
%User%\Start Menu\TSC
%User%\Start Menu\TSC\Help.lnk
%User%\Start Menu\TSC\Registration.lnk
%Userfile%\Start Menu\TSC\TSC.lnk
%Progfiles%\Common Files\System\Uninstall
%Progfiles%\Common Files\System\Uninstall\Uninstall TSC.lnk
%Progfiles%\TSC
%Progfiles%\TSC\tsc.exe
The above files are related to Total Security Antivirus.
After cleaning out these I suggest you download malwarebytes antimwalware. You can find a link to download it by visiting my virus and malware removal toolkit.
Removing pests like this is not as straightforward as typical antivirus removal.
Because this program is intent on staying on your system, sites like mine and other sites giving instructions and help on removal are redirected to a site that claims that these sites may harm your computer. Also, the running process will prevent removal tools such as malwarebytes antimwalware from running. For this reason it’s important to kill of the running processes first.
If you are unable to access the task manager, you may be able to download and run process explorer and terminate tsc.exe that way. For a link to the process explorer download please visit the virus removal toolkit link above.
Total Security 2009 seems to add the following file:
%Progfiles%\TSC\Sc2C21UvvM.exe
I have also seen reference to Total security renaming one of it’s files to a string of numbers such as 65489463.exe (those may vary from system to system.) So, you will need to kill off any suspicious processes like this.
If you are unable to access the task manager or process explorer you may be able to rename taskmgr and then run it under it’s new name. (You would be safer copying it and creating a newly named file.) This should bypass the countermeasures total security antivirus has to prevent the removal of total security antivirus.
Good luck!