nasty little chunk of malware broke through my browser and Anti-Virus
last night called Antivirus Soft. Here is a quick way of cleaning up
after being taken out by this rogue chunk of malware in a few easy
steps. The cleanup will take about an hour or so to complete.
There is a lot of data on how to remove this but most of what is on
the network did not work last night. There are sites that talk about
using a registry edit to fix it, but those didn’t work. There is no way
to simply remove the software because of how it works by blocking the
functioning of every program but Internet Explorer or Firefox. There
simply is no way to regain control of your machine once it has been hit
by this little chunk of malware.
Here is what the Anti-Virus soft main screen looks like – this is
so you know if you have been zapped or not. Everything this program
tells you is bogus.
Here is what it looked like when it was running on my machine.
First thing, don’t panic, but it is ok to be very annoyed by the
whole thing. Second thing to do is remove the network cable from your
computer, or turn off the wireless if you computer has a wireless on
and off switch. You cannot get into any program to turn the network
off; you will have to resort to physical measures to get off the
network.
Second Thing – when the computer starts it reboot cycle, turn back
on wireless or plug back in your network cable. You want to boot into
safe mode with networking, if you are a windows Vista box
reboot/restart and keep on pressing F8 until you see the screen below.
Third thing – because you are in safe mode a lot of programs will
not work, but your browser will. I tried a number of programs last
night and only one would work malwarebytes which you can get here. Download that program and run a quick scan which will quietly remove the malware while you are running in safe mode.
Reboot your computer and the program will be removed from your
computer. Get another virus scanner and run a detailed in depth virus
scan after the malwarebytes program has done its thing. Of course this
may or may not work for you and the usual disclaimers, but this is what
I had to do last night to clean up the mess that this program left
behind on my laptop. Usual disclaimers apply here, this may or may not
help you at all. Most of the directions I found last night did not work
with the version of the program that I got hit with.
(Cross-posted @ IT Toolbox )
