September 19th, 2009
Windows PC Defender is a rogue antivirus application that resembles the legitimate antispyware known as Windows Defender from Microsoft. Their intent apparently is to mimic the look an theming of that application to trick potential customers into trusting and downloading (and paying for) their product. It is a clone of Windows Guard Pro and Ultimate System Guard. Like so many of these rogues, they simply change the names and recycle much of what they’ve used before. As most of these applications do, Windows PC Defender displays false claims of system problems and threats and claims to be able to remove them if you pay. So… on to removal of windows pc defender.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus, Rogue Security Software | No Comments »
September 19th, 2009
It looks as though that Virus Doctor (or Virusdoctor) is an older rogue antivirus application, but since it seems related to the search I was seeing lot’s of last night about rootscan.info I thought I would devote an article to the removal instructions for virus doctor. Since it may be related to Windows PC Defender, you may see an article on that coming up this evening. But, first to the matter at hand: How to carry out a virus doctor removal.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus, Rogue Security Software | No Comments »
September 19th, 2009
To follow up the last post about watching google hot trends….
I noticed an unusual search in the trends for rootscan.info. It currently seems to redirect to a site talking about rogue antivirus removal so it might not be anything, but the related searches for virus doctor, virus doctor removal, windows pc defender removal make me wonder if we’ve got another wave of rogue applications. Everything I see referenced is older though with the possible exception of Windows PC Defender.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus, Rogue Security Software | No Comments »
September 19th, 2009
The internet is an amazing place you can learn about most anything from carbon nanotubes stopping bullets to a duvet cover. In the last few weeks I’ve learned a few things over at Google’s hot trends page. Basically, about once an hour there is an autogenerated list of the top 100 things people are searching for right now. What I’ve found interesting about it is to see tomorrows news headlines being searched for today. Several times I’ve seen searches in the top 100 that I had no idea what it related to until I saw the news the following day, then it all made sense.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Google | No Comments »
September 17th, 2009
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?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus, Rogue Security Software | No Comments »
September 14th, 2009
Just as last week, the facebook fan check application virus rumor is making the rounds again. And also just as last week people searching for information on the facebook fan check virus are running into some of the top search results hosting malware. There were several attack sites up last week when I saw this search in heavy duty hot trend mode and it likely is the same this week.
A word of caution – if you visit a web page that promptly pops up a full screen drawing of my computer or the like and claims to be running a scan on your computer it is probably faked.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus, Rogue Security Software | No Comments »
September 9th, 2009
A lot of blackberry users are talking about a blackberry outage this afternoon and evening. It seems that the Blackberry internet service is unreliable at the moment with some users reporting a flat out outage and others say they’re getting bursts of email.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in General Web/Tech | No Comments »
September 9th, 2009
A lot of people seem to be reporting today that AVG is finding files to be infected with trojan horse proxy.ahiy or trojan horse proxy ahiy. From what I’ve seen, although that may be a valid virus designation from AVG, they are also reporting many legitimate files as this trojan proxy ahiy. AVG is acknowledging that they are getting false positives from the current virus database and are saying that the next update of their virus database the issue should be resolved.
Further they offer the following advise if legitimate files have been quarantined due to this:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus | No Comments »
September 8th, 2009
Yes folks, it’s Windows Police Pro, the gift that keeps on giving apparently. It’s crawled back into Googles top searches tonight. If you want to see how to remove it look at Windows Police Pro Removal, you may be interested in Who is behind Windows Police Pro and probably will need to visit the virus tool removal list. The worst trick this virus plays….
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus, Rogue Security Software | No Comments »
September 7th, 2009
Personal Antivirus is another of those rogue antivirus programs. They claim to protect, but really their goal is to find ways to separate you from your money. Usually this is through false claims of infected files and a “we’ll fix it, if you pay us” sales model. Apparently it’s almost identical to Internet Antivirus Pro and General Antivirus. Cut from the same cloth I guess you could say. It (as the others) creates false reports of phantom infections on your system and then offers to clean them up for a cost. Nice huh? It sees invisible villains and can get rid of them for a fee.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antivirus, Rogue Security Software | No Comments »