"A360" or "Antivirus 360" spyware/virus.

[Chordata]

Wife was surfing the net the other day (hopefully porn, but doubtful) and saw the popup:

Your computer has been infected! Click here to remove!

Or something to that effect. Thinking it was a notice by our antivirus program, she clicked, and all hell broke loose. It installed this A360 program, and that program eventually locked up the system.

After a day of trying to do system restores (no luck), safe modes (no luck), etc., I finally bit the bullet and deleted Windows XP, and reinstalled it.

Just wanted to pass along the warning in case anyone else stumbles upon this. Surely you're all more savvy than my wife, but you never know. They make it look real official.

[quexos]

Sorry to hear that. One must never click on pop-ups no matter what.
A good advice I once heard was to close pop-ups by the X at the top right corner and not the "yes" or the "no" choice because a malevolent pop-up can be programmed to install as soon as you click whatever choice given.

Don't ever believe any ad about the state of your computer, keep your anti-virus up to date and scan your computer from time to time.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of people waste their meaningless time creating viruses and attacks of all kinds which end-up hurting the little people who are just surfing and do harm no one. They should be caught and sent to jail or something.

[mikejet]

Try the program "hijack this" and spybot search and destroy. Those are both great. Creator is merojin or something like that.

[Chordata]

Originally Posted by mikejet

Try the program "hijack this" and spybot search and destroy. Those are both great. Creator is merojin or something like that.

Both great suggestions. Unfortunately, within 24 hours, our computer was so f'd up that I couldn't even access any programs. Not even in safe mode. Couldn't even restore.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by quexos

Sorry to hear that. One must never click on pop-ups no matter what.
A good advice I once heard was to close pop-ups by the X at the top right corner and not the "yes" or the "no" choice because a malevolent pop-up can be programmed to install as soon as you click whatever choice given.

The best method to stop drive-by installs is to do a CTRL-ALT-DEL and start the Task Manager. Then go to the Applications tab, highlight whatever is running, then click the End Task button.

You should also then go to Tools on the Internet Explorer (End Task may have shut down all open Explorer windows, which is fine - just go back into Internet Explorer) amd delete all cookies.

I hate cookies. Cookies are not "cute" things, and I even hate the name.

Destroy all cookies.

[Marquoz]

I've always used command prompt fixes on the very rare times I've gotten a virus. Just delete the puppy right off before it's loaded next boot.

[Driver_King]

I do IT side work and know of an excellent way to remove these programs quickly, easily, and painlessly. Download this. I have used it on plenty of computers and it works like a charm. Follow the instructions on it. Ccleaner is also a good program to access what appears on startup and to uninstall programs. AVG Free 8.0 is a painless, low maintenance program that scans for viruses and spyware, updates daily, does daily scans, ect. If your computer runs slow after you've installed and use all of the programs listed, I suggest downloading this. It is a very easy way to speed up your computer and keep it running at its peak. I hope that all works out for you.

[vesh]

does this virus give you the red ring of death lol...anyways, just RESET your router while the computers are unplugged from the network. that did the trick for me.

[tommyboy81]

You have to watch out for that and Windows 2008 Antivirus program that will pop up. That's a fake also.

[Sussudio]

Originally Posted by tommyboy81

You have to watch out for that and Windows 2008 Antivirus program that will pop up. That's a fake also.

my brother got hit with the latter...was not a fun repatching process

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by O_V_N

Wife was surfing the net the other day (hopefully porn, but doubtful) and saw the popup:

Your computer has been infected! Click here to remove!

Or something to that effect. Thinking it was a notice by our antivirus program, she clicked, and all hell broke loose. It installed this A360 program, and that program eventually locked up the system.

After a day of trying to do system restores (no luck), safe modes (no luck), etc., I finally bit the bullet and deleted Windows XP, and reinstalled it.

Just wanted to pass along the warning in case anyone else stumbles upon this. Surely you're all more savvy than my wife, but you never know. They make it look real official.

One of my patients picked that up. It would even hijack the browser when you searched for how to remove it....... for a splt second you could see the REAL results.. then the search results would just fill with good reviews of the anti-virus software.

It was relatively easy to remove though. Just went to all the active processes and found the ones related to this "antivirus" software and disabled them..... then installed AVG free which cleaned it right off.

[QwikSand]

Antivirus 2008, Antivirus 2009 and Antivirus 360 are the main known culprits. What they do is install a folder in your Program Files, and I forget the name, but you can tell it's wrong because the icons are generally p0rn. I had it once because my friend usuing the computer saw it pop up and yelled "you got a virus, I'll fix it" as I was yelling NO!!! and that was it. Fortunately http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/malw...antivirus-2009 is a very helpful site that details how to get rid of these.

[Chordata]

Agreed that it's easy to remove....unless you wait too long.

For us, it got to the point that when Windows loaded (if it loaded at all ---- got the blue screen of death every other boot), the desktop would load, and then you could not access anything. If we moved the mouse over an icon, the Start menu, or the task tray, the "pointer" would turn into the "hourglass."

Anyway, the Google hijack was 100% accurate. While it worked for a shortime, I googled it and it brought up some real results. When you clicked on a link, however, it took you to the world's worst sites instead.

All in all, a very fun virus.

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by O_V_N

Agreed that it's easy to remove....unless you wait too long.

For us, it got to the point that when Windows loaded (if it loaded at all ---- got the blue screen of death every other boot), the desktop would load, and then you could not access anything. If we moved the mouse over an icon, the Start menu, or the task tray, the "pointer" would turn into the "hourglass."

Anyway, the Google hijack was 100% accurate. While it worked for a shortime, I googled it and it brought up some real results. When you clicked on a link, however, it took you to the world's worst sites instead.

All in all, a very fun virus.

That blue screen of death was a fake too.

[QwikSand]

Yeah some of them have created their own blue screens to simulate your system being crashed making you want to 'buy' the product to 'fix' the 'problem'. Mine and my friend's never got to that point fortunately.

[DeathByAsh'aman]

Originally Posted by O_V_N

Wife was surfing the net the other day (hopefully porn, but doubtful) and saw the popup:

Your computer has been infected! Click here to remove!

Or something to that effect. Thinking it was a notice by our antivirus program, she clicked, and all hell broke loose. It installed this A360 program, and that program eventually locked up the system.

After a day of trying to do system restores (no luck), safe modes (no luck), etc., I finally bit the bullet and deleted Windows XP, and reinstalled it.

Just wanted to pass along the warning in case anyone else stumbles upon this. Surely you're all more savvy than my wife, but you never know. They make it look real official.

My wife did the same thing, and then i said, "I didnt know people actually clicked on those things" then this

[Chordata]

Originally Posted by DeathByAsh'aman

My wife did the same thing, and then i said, "I didnt know people actually clicked on those things" then this

Wives....

[Ferris]

I had to clean up a friend's computer which was infected with XP-Police.... Same type of bugger really. Fortunately I got it early, and was able to get it all cleaned up (using regedit) within 2 hours.