I just re-installed XP onto my home PC and I get a "your computer is infected" message coming up from the system tray "click here to protect your PC etc" if you click on it it takes you to the XP security centre which does a full scan then says you have 6 viruses etc and please pay us US$49 for a subscription.
Firstly can I shut off the annoying messages and secondly, when I am on the internet a message comes up saying I am browsing unprotected and would I like to continue (not recommended) if I click on this I get a blank screen and it pretty much kills my internet browsing.

Can I just shut down the XP Security Centre as I intend to purchase a virus protection bit of software.

 

You sure that's security centre?

It sound more like malware "pretending" to be security centre...XP security centre NEVER asks you for money. There are quite a few floating about, some of which are very hard to remove

What version of XP was the install disk? If it was pre SP2 (service pack2), then it won't even have security centre and the firewall is defaulted to off so the system gets infected as soon as it connects to the internet.

You can try The home of Spybot-S&D!

And Ad-Aware 2008 Free - Lavasoft

Both free, and both do remove alot of infections. But there is a possibility that this type of infection won't be removeable by any software (paid or free) - as last time I had to deal with it, it involved scanning through the system regsitry manually for the rougue entries.

Also beware that the above links might not work if the malware is hi-jacking your browser. As it could prevent you viewing sites that may remove the infection or redirect you to one asking you for money.

Also makes sure SP2 is on there (probably auto downloaded by now anyway...too late though - its been infected ). If you don't know where to check: Right click on My Computer, select Properties and click on the General tab, it should say what windows version is on there.

 

Thanks Shark

Its XP Home (2002) with SP2 - but looks very much like I am infected, as cant believe XP Security Centre would do this.

I will re-install. Its wierd as I only re-installed yesterday and visited this site, Pistonheads and installed instant messager before this happened - so no idea where the infection was picked up from.

I think after re-installing I will load up free anti-virus immediately so I have some protection - any ideas which are the best ones (free and paid) I heard that AVG is a good free one and to perhaps avoid Norton which is system resource heavy ?

Cheers.

 

AVG is well known to miss a lot of viruses. It is not a "safe" option. In fact none of the free ones are that great. Nod32 is one of the best "paid for" ones available. Very small resource usage, fast, and catches pretty much everything (never seen an infected machine with it installed).

 

sounds like youve got infected with something. Opened any strange emails lately perhaps one from UPS?

My advice is to do a system restore to a date before this started and when complete download - Bitdefender and let it scan you HD.

Had a few customers with the same this week.

Free Anti Virus Downloads - BitDefender

download the trial version, the free is not so good but the full version, albeit a trial is the best I have tried so far and got a PC world gold award, 1st place in an AV test. Plus its £15 to buy for a three machine license.

 

Best AV, paid or not, is NOD32, with Kapersky a little behind it. And get a firewall as well: the free version of Zone Alarm is good, and plays well with NOD32.


M

 

what will kill this is a program call smitfraudfix.
This is common fault on XP. Google smitfraid, download it, then run it.
Its a DOS program and will get rid of this for you. If you can, download the latest patch.

 

100% agree with this. NOD is great, we have it installed on all our laptops & PC's.
Also use the account manager to restrict the accounts to standard users, including your own.
By all means, use the admin account to install etc.

 

I think this came from the UPS tracking email too...some of my users in the office have it now. First virus for ages! Fasthosts are pretty good for our mail scanning plus I also have server side protection but this one seems to be getting past a lot of the AV progs....won't for long tho as I have seen a few of my customers with it too.

 

I've been getting quite a few UPS emails of recent. Seems to be doing the rounds.

One tip is to never open .zip files sent to you, as thats a common method of hiding a virus from AV scanners. And if you do receive one, check the message header to see who its "really" from and who its been sent to.

If your email address isn't in the "to" section; its likely to be spam or a virus.