[MelodyL]

Well, I don't know what my husband did, but all of a sudden he started shouting, Our Security is off, our firewalls are off, we don't have virus protection".

I knew immediately what was happening. I told him "this is a virus that is downloading itself to our computer". He must have clicked on a download update thing or something.

Sure enough on the bottom right of my computer is the icon for XP Security 2011. I just googled it, and I was right. It's a malicious trojan thing.

It's still there on the bottom right of my computer.

If anyone can enlighten me how to get this thing off besides doing what I'm now doing, I would appreciate it.

I am now running Super Professional Anti-Spyware, and after that I'll run Malwarebytes.

But I hope this thing goes away.

I don't know why this man insists on going to those stupid game sites. He doesn't know how to view these things as threats. He really thinks these pop up alerts are the real deal.

Good Lord.

Melody

[Jomar]

Or any of these online scanners - you might need to use your IE browser for them to work - it will tell you when you try it with FF if it needs IE.

then just copy /paste the URL into the IE location bar and hit go or enter

http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

http://free.antivirus.com/clean-up-tools/

http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeuse...ns/activescan/

http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs...online-scanner

oh - here's the whole list in one place -
http://techpp.com/2009/08/07/top-10-...ers-antivirus/

some sites will have a specific download available to remove the spy.,Trojan, virus - or tell you how to removes it if the scanner can't do it.

[MelodyL]

Originally Posted by Jo*mar

Or any of these online scanners - you might need to use your IE browser for them to work - it will tell you when you try it with FF if it needs IE.

then just copy /paste the URL into the IE location bar and hit go or enter

http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

http://free.antivirus.com/clean-up-tools/

http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeuse...ns/activescan/

http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs...online-scanner

oh - here's the whole list in one place -
http://techpp.com/2009/08/07/top-10-...ers-antivirus/

some sites will have a specific download available to remove the spy.,Trojan, virus - or tell you how to removes it if the scanner can't do it.

Thanks much. I don't know how you all do the stuff you do. Every time I tried to get on any website I would get pop-ups, warnings, alerts, IT WOULDN'T LET ME DO ANYTHING. So I couldn't go to any of the links. It was like this SP Total Security 2011 thing took a hold on my computer.

So, thankfully, because I pay $5.99 for a Verizon Tech support anti-virus thing, I got them on the phone, and I had to do step by step to (and don't ask me what I did because I couldn't understand what the girl was saying) but I did try to follow what she said to do. Then she remotely took control of my computer and boy, did she get to work. Not only did she disable the virus, she then cornered it, deleted it, and sent it to the great beyond.

Then I said "now that you have control of my computer, can you please get rid of the microsoft documents that always pop up on the bottom of my screen. Every time she got rid of one, another new one popped up. Don't know how she did it, I gather she went to my start up folder or whatever, but THANK GOD, it's all good. All fixed, no more stupid virus, and oh my god, the pop up warnings, and security warnings, telling me I was infected when it was all the actual virus.

She told me "we are getting a lot of calls about this virus, it's rampant".

So I am thankful that it's over (for now or until Alan gets loose on my computer again).

And thanks so much for trying to help.

I have a new respect for computer people. I thought I knew computers.

I KNOW NOTHING.

I watched her do her stuff and oh my god, I tried to follow what she was doing. I mean, I know I'm 63 and I'm not stupid, but my god, I FEEL STUPID.

lol

Melody

[Jomar]

oh yeah, I forgot that some of the bad ones do block any thing or any website that might try to clean or scan it.

[MelodyL]

Originally Posted by Jo*mar

oh yeah, I forgot that some of the bad ones do block any thing or any website that might try to clean or scan it.

Hi.

The only thing I have to make sure of is that my husband DOES NOT CLICK on any option that says "Warning, your computer is infected, click on this to be protected". He believes everything he sees.

I used to have a sign over the computer that was taped to the wall.

the sign read:

DO NOT DOWNLOAD, UPDATE OR INSTALL ANY PROGRAMS ON THIS COMPUTER.

DO NOT CLICK ON ANY POP-UPS.

UNDER PAIN OF DEATH.

He thought it was hysterical.

I meant every word.

lol lol lol

I'm a tough cookie. If you think I wanted to be up for one hour and on the phone with someone from India who I did not understand (and god bless that woman, she did know her stuff) but it took me one hour because I kept saying "please repeat what you said" I could not understand one thing.

And I could hear the other tech support people in the background talking on THEIR phones.

But I was glad of one thing. She was very thorough and she said "If at any time, you want to cancel the remote hosting, you may just click on the thing", etc. etc. I already knew this, but they are very security minded at Verizon.

Want to know what scares me though. In this day and age, we have to rely on special people to take over our computers (at least many of us do), because we don't have the technical expertise to do this ourselves.

I mean I really think that if they didn't have these tech people, most people would throw out their computers, replace them, or at best, wipe out their hard drive and start from scratch again.

We are TOO dependent on technology. We are we going to go from here?

Are we going to be saying "Beam me up Scotty"???

Scary

Melody

[Jomar]

I tell my dad is to just turn the computer off if there is any pop ups or warnings at all.

It's just the easiest thing to do - and then I go the next day and do some scans and clean up.

They get a lot of fwds & joke emails from well meaning friends...
or the "pass this on to 10 friends" that stuff is all junk IMO

[MelodyL]

Originally Posted by Jo*mar

I tell my dad is to just turn the computer off if there is any pop ups or warnings at all.

It's just the easiest thing to do - and then I go the next day and do some scans and clean up.

They get a lot of fwds & joke emails from well meaning friends...
or the "pass this on to 10 friends" that stuff is all junk IMO

I know EXACTLY what you mean. I get chain letters telling me if I don't pass the "angel", I'll get 7 years of bad luck. You don't want to know what I have written back to these people.

These are usually people who are NEW computer users and have no idea what they are doing.

Mel

[Jomar]

It's really best to just delete them.
replying just verifies that yours is a active email address.

Unless a friend/family member sent it to you and doesn't realize that it just helps all the spammers get more names & email addresses...

I had to explain to my niece that these were mostly made up by spammers /scammers to collect information.

she was sending all these fwds about blessings & orphans , soldiers..
and leaving all the other emails on the top showing to everyone..
she's very trusting & honest and just didn't think that those sweet messages could be some fake scam.

[MelodyL]

Jomar:

guess what's back on my computer? That stupid XP Security 2011 virus. Alan went on to those stupid sites of his and announced. "Oh, it's back". I said "I told you not to go to those sites"

So I am now running a spyware and I'm going to kill this man.

lol
Melody
P.S. I am not going to call up verizon and spend another hour doing that stuff again because I know Alan. He'll just do it again.

Mel

[Jomar]

Oh man!
when you get it removed..

I really think it will help to go to this link with Firefox and install the WOT add on - it will color code with a Icon by the url/location bar what is safe or not green is OK, yellow is caution and red is bad.
if real bad it will not load the page and tell you why.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...browsing-tool/