Virus? Scam? Stealing my money? Help!
May 10, 2011 7:49 PM Subscribe
I'm a sap and just paid to download Vista Home Security 2011... which apparently is some sort of virus type thing? How do I address this?
It seems that I have downloaded some sort of BAD THING for my computer, "Vista Home Security 2011." How do I address this? I gave it my credit card info, too....
I do have VISTA but dont know what virus programs to run or anything, really...
It seems that I have downloaded some sort of BAD THING for my computer, "Vista Home Security 2011." How do I address this? I gave it my credit card info, too....
I do have VISTA but dont know what virus programs to run or anything, really...
Call your credit card company and dispute the charge, like NOW. Here's some more about the program and how to remove it from BleepingComputer. Best of luck!
posted by uniq at 7:52 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by uniq at 7:52 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]
I'd deal with the two issues separately:
1. Cancel the credit card. That's straightforward enough.
2. Download ComboFix.exe (there's a guide to using it at BleepingComputer, here). One thing I'd do before I ran ComboFix if I were you is put it on your desktop and rename it explorer.exe before you run it. This will keep the virus on your machine from killing that process. Worked like a charm for me when I had a very similar issue.
posted by yellowcandy at 7:53 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
1. Cancel the credit card. That's straightforward enough.
2. Download ComboFix.exe (there's a guide to using it at BleepingComputer, here). One thing I'd do before I ran ComboFix if I were you is put it on your desktop and rename it explorer.exe before you run it. This will keep the virus on your machine from killing that process. Worked like a charm for me when I had a very similar issue.
posted by yellowcandy at 7:53 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
... And in future, if you have Vista or higher - Microsoft provides a free anti-virus...
Microsoft Security Essentials
I love it - unlike many others, it is lightweight and doesn't bog down my system.
posted by jkaczor at 7:54 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]
Microsoft Security Essentials
I love it - unlike many others, it is lightweight and doesn't bog down my system.
posted by jkaczor at 7:54 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]
If you don't currently have antivirus software, you can use Microsoft's own Security Essentials, which is pretty competent and easy to use.
posted by roomwithaview at 7:55 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by roomwithaview at 7:55 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: It's on the bottom right corner of my screen, one of those little icons next to the clock. Which think means I actually installed it.
Yikes, thank you all so much for responding quickly...
I'm not particulary technically literate, but jeez, I still can't believe I fell for this one. Good idea about calling the credit card company...
posted by Tulip at 7:56 PM on May 10, 2011
Yikes, thank you all so much for responding quickly...
I'm not particulary technically literate, but jeez, I still can't believe I fell for this one. Good idea about calling the credit card company...
posted by Tulip at 7:56 PM on May 10, 2011
Response by poster: Okay. I froze my debit account and can dispute the charges tomorrow.
I dont understand a lot of this other stuff, but I cant act on it until tomorrow anyway, since I have no printer to print instructions or clean computer to use to guide/help me.
Meanwhile, do you think it makes it worse if I leabe my computer on? Can I do things like log in to check email?
Thanks!!
posted by Tulip at 8:22 PM on May 10, 2011
I dont understand a lot of this other stuff, but I cant act on it until tomorrow anyway, since I have no printer to print instructions or clean computer to use to guide/help me.
Meanwhile, do you think it makes it worse if I leabe my computer on? Can I do things like log in to check email?
Thanks!!
posted by Tulip at 8:22 PM on May 10, 2011
Response by poster: Hrmmm.... okay, fair enough. No more e-mailing for tonight. I'll take the virus removal one step at a time tomorrow, as best I can.
posted by Tulip at 8:34 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by Tulip at 8:34 PM on May 10, 2011
Once VHS2011 is off your box, you might prefer Panda Cloud Antivirus over Microsoft Security Essentials. I certainly do.
posted by flabdablet at 11:41 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by flabdablet at 11:41 PM on May 10, 2011
I had this problem just recently. Here's the AskMe I posted about it.
And I really hope the inventors of this virus rot in hell.
posted by orange swan at 5:46 AM on May 11, 2011
And I really hope the inventors of this virus rot in hell.
posted by orange swan at 5:46 AM on May 11, 2011
I am struggling with the same virus this week, but didn't download or buy it. I tried Kaspersky on it, but now I get the blue screen of death thing. I cannot even get it to boot in safemode or anything in order to try other steps. What now?
posted by maxg94 at 6:32 AM on May 11, 2011
posted by maxg94 at 6:32 AM on May 11, 2011
deezil is a rock star. (Scroll down.)
Deezil's links are great but I'm afriad that they're just band-aid and, at worse, a waste of time. By all means use the software listed, but only up to the point where you have the system up and running and capable of letting you back everything up onto an external drive. Once you're done, either re-install from scratch or use the recovery CD.
This is the only 100% guaranteed way of ensuring that whatever nasty was on your system has been completely removed. Even if you use everything in that list, there is no guarantee that it won't come back to bite you a couple of months later.
I recommend using "Magical JellyBean KeyFinder" to get the licence keys of all the software you've bought, "Double Driver" to backup those hard to find drivers and "ninite" to quickly re-install common applications. All three are free.
posted by mr_silver at 7:17 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]
Deezil's links are great but I'm afriad that they're just band-aid and, at worse, a waste of time. By all means use the software listed, but only up to the point where you have the system up and running and capable of letting you back everything up onto an external drive. Once you're done, either re-install from scratch or use the recovery CD.
This is the only 100% guaranteed way of ensuring that whatever nasty was on your system has been completely removed. Even if you use everything in that list, there is no guarantee that it won't come back to bite you a couple of months later.
I recommend using "Magical JellyBean KeyFinder" to get the licence keys of all the software you've bought, "Double Driver" to backup those hard to find drivers and "ninite" to quickly re-install common applications. All three are free.
posted by mr_silver at 7:17 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]
In my opinion, that is incorrect.
In my opinion, there is no 100% guaranteed way of ensuring that any home computer is malware-free. None. Ever. For a start, no person or organization ever offers such a guarantee.
All we ever get is various amounts of confidence that our computers are not compromised. And as any victim of a Trojan antivirus hoax can attest, even having a Windows box that actually is 100% clean does not always inspire such confidence.
The more technical knowledge a computer user has, the more justified is that user's level of confidence in the cleanliness of the computer. This confidence comes from observing the system's behaviour. Knowledgeable users will do things like checking lists of running processes to look for unfamiliar names, running packet sniffers to watch for traffic to unexpected places, checking router settings to see if unexpected listening ports have been opened via uPnP and so forth.
I have quite a large amount of technical knowledge, and I can simply no longer be bothered keeping up with the regular monitoring routines I'd need to use to give me confidence that my Windows boxes are clean. This is one of the major reasons why I choose not to run Windows natively on any box I own.
Windows remains the only desktop operating system to suffer from in-the-wild malware infections. If you lack the technical knowledge required to maintain a reasonable level of confidence in the cleanliness of your Windows box, It is worth having a serious think about switching to something else.
posted by flabdablet at 3:49 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
In my opinion, there is no 100% guaranteed way of ensuring that any home computer is malware-free. None. Ever. For a start, no person or organization ever offers such a guarantee.
All we ever get is various amounts of confidence that our computers are not compromised. And as any victim of a Trojan antivirus hoax can attest, even having a Windows box that actually is 100% clean does not always inspire such confidence.
The more technical knowledge a computer user has, the more justified is that user's level of confidence in the cleanliness of the computer. This confidence comes from observing the system's behaviour. Knowledgeable users will do things like checking lists of running processes to look for unfamiliar names, running packet sniffers to watch for traffic to unexpected places, checking router settings to see if unexpected listening ports have been opened via uPnP and so forth.
I have quite a large amount of technical knowledge, and I can simply no longer be bothered keeping up with the regular monitoring routines I'd need to use to give me confidence that my Windows boxes are clean. This is one of the major reasons why I choose not to run Windows natively on any box I own.
Windows remains the only desktop operating system to suffer from in-the-wild malware infections. If you lack the technical knowledge required to maintain a reasonable level of confidence in the cleanliness of your Windows box, It is worth having a serious think about switching to something else.
posted by flabdablet at 3:49 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
That being said, once a system is compromised, you are pretty much guaranteed that you should re-install. Typically I remove the hard-drive, install it in an external case, then use a seperate computer to get all the data off of it.
Then, to be safe I buy a new drive, install that and re-install everything.
If you are not technical, look for a local company to do something similar.
Good luck!
posted by jkaczor at 7:51 PM on May 10, 2011