Technical Reviews and Geek Toys

I was just doing some research for an e-Book that I am thinking about writing when all of a sudden I get this pop-up saying my machine is infected and asked If I wanted to run a scan. (I wish I would have gotten a screen shot of that pop-up.) Anyway I am running Linux so I knew anything that was thrown at me would be a Windows executable and wouldn't affect my machine so I said 'OK', show me what you've got. (If you are running Windows don't do this!) This is what I was displayed next...

...

Sorry this first image is not very legible. What I wanted to show you is that as soon as I licked OK on the pop-up, I was taken to a page that looked like "My Computer" had opened. Then the little green status bar under the CDROM made it's way from left to right giving the impression that a scan was being performed.

After the fake Trojan scan a pop-up appears stating your PC is still infected. How do I know this is a Trojan. I've seen it before. I have also spent days trying to clean up PCs after their owners thought it was real and installed it.

If you click on OK then this appears. The definition of spy-ware may be exactly the purpose of this Trojan.

If you click on the Remove All button it will download the installation package. If you are running Internet Explorer you will get a pop-up asking if you want to save or run the program. DON'T CLICK ON RUN!

If you click on Cancel instead of Remove All or click on the Red X on the Windows Security Alert you will get this message:

You won't be able to close the Windows Security Alert because it wants to install the Trojan package. Most people get so frustrated they may just say ok install the dumb thing not realizing how much more frustration it will cause.

Ok, so you may be wondering what you can do if this happens to you. Well, you certainly don't want to let it install the program. Try right-clicking on the browser button at the bottom of the screen and selecting "Close". If this doesn't work then probably the best and easiest thing to do is reboot your computer. This will safely exit out of your browser. If you have documents open you can switch over to Word or whatever and save your documents first. Of course there are other ways to shut down your browser but most people will not know how to do it so rebooting is the easiest.

So, now that we have your attention. Do you have anti-virus software installed? Do you check your machine regularly for spy-ware? Don't get lulled into a false sense of security. There are new malware (Trojans, spy-ware, & other bad stuff) being released all of the time. Whatever anti-virus software you are running, chances are it will not catch everything. Depending on how much Internet work you do it certainly wouldn't hurt to scan your PC once a week or so for junk. Of course this only applies to you if you are running Windows. Doesn't matter if you run 98, XP, or Vista; it applies to all Windows machines.

One of the easiest ways to scan your computer is using an on-line scanner. There are several available but I have found Bit Defender works well. Just scroll down the page and click on Scan Online. You will need to do this using Internet Explorer as it needs to install an Active-X application into IE. It also wouldn't hurt to install an application to scan for spyware, adware, hijackers and other malicious software. Spybot - Search & Destroy works really well.

It should be noted that once you are infected often times the Trojan will block the ability to install software that can be used to remove it. I have even seen instances where it blocks access to websites where software can be found to remove it. The individuals that write this stuff are getting more and more creative. Don't let them take advantage of you. You can start an on-line scan with Bit Defender when you are ready to get off your PC for the day and let it run over night. It will do what it can to either fix or delete any bug it finds. When it is done it will present a report where you can see if you are still infected or not. If you are still infected you will need to get it taken care of. Most Trojans replicate itself on your machine until it becomes so bogged down you won't be able to get anything done. Nuf said...