 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
If you have been infected by one of the many fake antivirus applications like Advanced Virus Remover, Antivirus Live, Internet Security 2010, or any other ones then you have a tough road ahead. These viruses/malware can be pretty nasty. But thankfully we have great instructions borrows from How-To Geek to help you get rid of them! Antivirus Live is one of many fake antivirus applications like Advanced Virus Remover and Internet Security 2010, that are really rogue viruses that take your computer hostage—then they tell you that your computer is infected by viruses, and you have to pay them to get rid of the fake viruses that aren’t really there. It’s a huge problem, and they are not easy to remove, because they block virtually everything you try and run, including real anti-malware tools. Also before you start I would recommend printing these instructions out using the print button to the right in case you do not have another way to pull them up when you start the procedure. Or you can email the link using the email button to the right. Below is generally what they look like. They act like they are currently scanning you machine for viruses. They are all fake, do not believe anything it says and do not click on anything. Just turn off your computer immediately and follow the below instructions.
Removing Rogue Fake Antivirus Infections (General Guide) There’s a couple of steps that you can generally follow to get rid of the majority of rogue antivirus infections, and actually most malware or spyware infections of any type. Here’s the quick steps:
Those are the rules that normally work. Let’s Remove Antivirus Live The first thing you’ll want to do is reboot your computer, and hit the F8 key right before Windows starts loading (you can hit it a bunch of times). Then select the Safe Mode with Networking option.
Before you do anything else, you’re going to need to fix the internet connection to work, because Antivirus Live changes IE to use a fake proxy server that prevents you from getting to anything else—and will also prevent you from installing and updating a real anti-malware software.
Now you’ll want to install SuperAntiSpyware (linked above), which you have hopefully downloaded via another computer already, but safe mode with networking should allow you to download and install it. Once you load it up, it’s going to do some analysis…
Then you’ll see the full application screen, where you’ll want to use the Check for Updates button to make sure you have the latest definitions. Once you’ve done that, click the Scan your Computer button.
Select your primary drive at least, though you should pick all the drives, and then click the Perform Complete Scan button.
It’ll run for a long time, detect a bunch of stuff, and then you can proceed through the wizard to actually removing it all…
Once it’s all done, you can reboot the PC again (just make sure to go back into Safe Mode again).
Next you’ll want to install Malwarebytes, make sure to check the Update tab for the latest definitions, and then perform a full scan of your system.
Malwarebytes will find even more malware that SuperAntiSpyware missed (seems like you always need more than one util to get it all). Just be sure to click the Remove Selected button to get rid of the rest.
Keep Scanning and updating Malwarebytes until it does not find any more infections. At this point you’ll want to reboot your system, and then install Microsoft Security Essentials and run another full scan. Can’t hurt to be too cautious! Note: If you used a thumb drive at any point during this process, you should make sure and scan that as well—I’ve had viruses hop over to the thumb drive, ready to infect the next machine.
|
