Lately, I've been receiving a lot of trouble calls from clients saying their computer has a pop up window saying the computer is infected with hundreds of viruses and that their computer is unprotected. First thing I tell them is that those messages are fake and intended to drive you to the point where you'll buy the software.  That particular "malware" is very persistent and will not let you do anything else on the computer.  There's also a strain of that malware that totally hijack's your web browser thus preventing you from going anywhere except for their website.  This s a real nuisance and ridding of it can be as simple as running a few tools, or a major pain in the butt.  When I get a computer infected with this type of malware, this is what I typically do.

1. As this fake virus alert is running, I will press <ctrl>-<alt><delete> and select Task Manager.
2. Click on the Applications tab.
3. Look for an entry that should read, "Windows Security Alert" or similar.
4. Right-Mouse click on that name, then select Go to Process.
5. Jot down the name of the process for reference.
6. Click on End Process button.  At this point the program should stop running.
7. Now, I will be able to install Malwarebytes, and Spybot
8. First I update and run spybots, then I run Malwarebytes.

Couple of things can happen.  First is that this malware will prevent you from viewing the Task Manager.  When this happens, I will boot the computer to Safe Mode, then install Malwarebytes, and Spybot from there.

To prevent this from happening, be careful of what you download and install or even click on on the net.  From my experiences so far, neither Norton nor McAfee will detect or clean this malware.  An article I read on the web theorized that the reason they don't trap this nuisance is because it is not considerd to be a "virus".  So you will need other tools to battle this malware on top of your current anti-virus software, and I would strongly recommend you download and have these tools ready to deploy when needed.  Better yet, included it in as part of your computer maintenance routine.

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