My parents' PC had a nasty trojan this morning. They have Trend Micro AV/anti spyware on it. The smart little bugger disabled the virus scanner (and any available internet updates I tried to get), also set up proxy settings in IE8 so I couldn't access the internet.
Be aware of this thing if you get it - it's called "antivirus soft" - with a neat and clean GUI that is really a scam and pops up messages saying your PC is infected and you need to "buy" their scanner to fix it. This is the best link I could find that tells about how dangerous it is:
Remove Antivirus Soft (Uninstall Guide)
It helped me out but in the end (thank the Lord) I had Firefox installed from the last time I visited and the trojan did not screw with that browser. So what I did was download Microsoft's Security Essentials and try to update it it. I was unsuccessful, but I went into safe mode in WinXP and was able to update the MSE program within safemode. I then had to go back to normal Windows to run the full scan. The thing found it, and removed it. I then was able to access IE8 and disable the proxy settings the trojan set up.
I then updated my dad's Trend Micro suite. It goes to show that an expensive AV suite will not always catch these buggers. The freeware saved the day in this case!
So, Kudos to you Microsoft for your little program. The only thing I ask is please please let me install it in safe mode. Apparently the MSI packages are forbidden from working while in safe mode (security feature I spose). There was a way to enable MSI installers but it was a command prompt registry key entry, and I was unable to make it work.
Be aware of this thing if you get it - it's called "antivirus soft" - with a neat and clean GUI that is really a scam and pops up messages saying your PC is infected and you need to "buy" their scanner to fix it. This is the best link I could find that tells about how dangerous it is:
Remove Antivirus Soft (Uninstall Guide)
It helped me out but in the end (thank the Lord) I had Firefox installed from the last time I visited and the trojan did not screw with that browser. So what I did was download Microsoft's Security Essentials and try to update it it. I was unsuccessful, but I went into safe mode in WinXP and was able to update the MSE program within safemode. I then had to go back to normal Windows to run the full scan. The thing found it, and removed it. I then was able to access IE8 and disable the proxy settings the trojan set up.
I then updated my dad's Trend Micro suite. It goes to show that an expensive AV suite will not always catch these buggers. The freeware saved the day in this case!
So, Kudos to you Microsoft for your little program. The only thing I ask is please please let me install it in safe mode. Apparently the MSI packages are forbidden from working while in safe mode (security feature I spose). There was a way to enable MSI installers but it was a command prompt registry key entry, and I was unable to make it work.