I have bought my Son an Advent netbook for his travels abroad (that way we might just about hear from him sometime in the next 6 months!!).

Anyway, have rigged it up with AVG antivirus and Search and Destroy, but keep getting a nagging message from Windows Security urging me to upgrade to MS Antivirus 2009 - which I don't want to do.

How do you disable this?? I thought it would be fairly obvious but can find anything.

It's a virus. For removal instructions, follow this link.

It's a virus. For removal instructions, follow this link.

Yes, its a virus and a pain to remove.

I've just finished sorting a friends laptop that was infested with Smart anti virus 2009. I used Smitfraud fix, here:

SmitFraudFix

This has sorted it along with the use of Avast anti virus, Windows Defender.

Yes, its a virus and a pain to remove.

Yep. It's quite persistent.

Had to sort out a few PCs with this on lately.

Had to sort out a few PCs with this on lately.

I've only had one- a neighbours. It took a while, by the time it was patched and scanned completely.

I only stopped the one executable self-replicating by killing the process, renaming the file, and creating a read-only dummy in it's place. It has a randomly generated name too.....

The PC concerned is a regular visitor: his kids do a lot of file sharing, and don't care what they click on. Still, keeps me in beer.

It's a virus. For removal instructions, follow this link.

thats a bummer. all I did was switch on a brand new machine, connect to the web and download AVG:eek:

thats a bummer. all I did was switch on a brand new machine, connect to the web and download AVG:eek:

Tried getting AVG to find it, but no luck:thumbdwn:

I've cleaned a few of these recently. What a pain! Took an age to sort out when I first saw it!

I've had to do my Dad's and the neighbour's. It's a little turd that one.

I used this guide

How to remove Antivirus XP 2008 (Uninstall Instructions)

I stuck my Dad on Ubuntu for now, I was getting hacked off with having to fix the feckin thing every weekend.

I'd steer clear of online banking and shopping until you're sure it's gone.

From Antivirus 2009 or Antivirus2009 :: Antivirus 2009 Removal Instructions :

"Antivirus 2009 is usually promoted via a ZLOB/MediaAccess Codec installer found on adult websites."

:rubchin:

"Antivirus 2009 is usually promoted via a ZLOB/MediaAccess Codec installer found on adult websites."

:rubchin:

Busted!

I had one on a primary school computer the other day, started prompting the teacher mid lesson. A bit worrying really. Shame, I've never seen a teacher in such a panic before. I didn't even bother trying to clean that one, just re-imaged it straight away.

From Antivirus 2009 or Antivirus2009 :: Antivirus 2009 Removal Instructions :

"Antivirus 2009 is usually promoted via a ZLOB/MediaAccess Codec installer found on adult websites."

:rubchin:

In defence of those affected it's pretty common on the web not just gentlemen's happy pages.

My old man has a habit of downloading all sorts of crap. I really need to partition the drive and ghost an XP install.

Busted!

I had one on a primary school computer the other day, started prompting the teacher mid lesson. A bit worrying really. Shame, I've never seen a teacher in such a panic before. I didn't even bother trying to clean that one, just re-imaged it straight away.

You work in schools you poor begger! I did that for 3 years. You'll never meet such a bunch of incompetent yet self important users as teachers.

You work in schools you poor begger! I did that for 3 years. You'll never meet such a bunch of incompetent yet self important users as teachers.

:rofl:

Keeps me entertained on a daily basis.

You work in schools you poor begger! I did that for 3 years. You'll never meet such a bunch of incompetent yet self important users as teachers.

try broadcast journalists

Ironically, i've just had a phone call for a job tonight and guess what, it is this very virus!

I'll let you know how much of a pig it is.

Cant people follow basic instructions on google anymore, but then again it keeps you guys in business. How do people still get viruses these days anyway? Not exactly hard to protect yourself.

These days computer viruses are nothing like the days of old. A modern virus does not need you to click on anything, they can get into your computer from lots of different sources.

The most common is a malicious website that buries the virus code in the html, and just viewing the page is enough to infect your computer especially a new one with no security updates. The same goes for html emails sent by the virus itself that contains the code embedded. Less common are the viruses that port scan internet connected machines and install the code so that it runs on next boot by inserting registry keys and copying the files onto the Hard drive. Most of these fail if the computer is upto date with updates. Becoming less common now, are the attachments and links because they are easily spotted by modern A/V software.

I run a IT support office, and even our machines are not immune. Two of the computers in our office became infected with this virus, the staff concerned were only searching the web for solutions to a problem we were having with ODBC. If it can happen to a team of IT experts, it can happen to a home user.

I've just been hit by this and have no idea where it came from / how it hit me.

Removing it now.

The interesting thing I noticed whilst downloading AVG Free for a laptop I was rebuilding is that there are quite a few sites that come up above AVGs own in the search results if you phrase the terms a certain way. From what I could tell, most of these were popup-laden middlemen unconnected to AVG, and that may be where the bug came from.

It took me about 2 hours to remove in the end, with the use of Unlocker and removal of certain items from the registry. Then followed virus and spyware scans in start up mode.

I've had worse

Been looking at what has actually hit me.

There are a set of DLLs which appear to be randomly named. but they are all 44,032 bytes (I guess they're copies). These have injected themselves to run with run32dll and winlogon so as soon as you start the PC, they're active and loaded into memory so you cannot delete them. And as soon as you launch anything, they're loaded into those too!

Sneakiest thing is that they appear to have also deleted all system restores prior to the date of their creation so you can't use that as an easy way to fix.

Edit: that unlocker prog is a most handy utility thanks for that