Remove Mediashifting.com hijacker to undo vicious browser hack

23.12.2011 | Malware Type: Browser Hijackers

Malware Description:
Mediashifting.com is an incredibly noxious piece of adware that provokes undesired consequences for any computer it lands on to. There has been much talk about the search engine redirect virus lately which affects numerous users who tend to surf the Internet a lot. This infection makes your browser act up in several ways. First of all, the homepage that you set as default may be substituted by a completely different URL without any action on your end. That’s quite impudent, isn’t it? Moreover, another aspect of this malware issue is about mapping the links in legitimate search systems’ results to phony ones. In either case, Mediashifting.com is going to show up instead of the right sites that you expect to hit. All of this is an outcome of illicit practices implemented by a trojan horse that must have penetrated your PC. This nasty little prankster has been ‘trained’ to change the settings that determine one’s mode of web browsing. The reason why this awful routine may have touched upon your private cyber life is money. Actually, it’s always about money when it comes to cyber crime, this instance not being an exception at all. The more people visit Mediashifting.com, the more cash the hackers may earn. This is one of the main trends of today’s Internet which consists in traffic conversion routine. Unfortunately, the criminals chose to apply bad methods for achieving that milestone. Therefore, if you are having a PC problem that has to do with random redirects to Mediashifting.com, you should immediately follow the procedure outlined below.

Remove Security Monitor 2012 scareware created by criminals

14.12.2011 | Malware Type: Rogue Anti-Spyware

Malware Description:
Security Monitor 2012 goes beyond the comprehension and notion of security software – because it’s a fake. The rogue antivirus industry seems to be gradually coming back to life after a number of police raids last summer. In May this year, we wrote about the program called Security Solution 2011. The reason why we mentioned this fact is for you to be able to compare the Graphical User Interfaces of these two utilities. Notice some similarity? Of course you do – moreover, they look almost the same, which testifies to their common origin. Security Monitor 2012 squeezes through your firewall and other guarding facilities in a way which in most cases excludes the possibility of detection. That’s why it’s usually a big surprise for users to see a program they don’t remember to have ever installed. When on board your computer, this badware starts scaring you with a bunch of instruments it has in store: those are some phony virus scanners and popup warning notifications. You may concurrently experience some application launching difficulties that keep you from running virus defense software. So, why is Security Monitor 2012 on your PC and what does it want from you? It doesn’t take a scientist to answer that one: this scareware is after money. It gradually gets you to the point where you realize you got malware issues and must do something about it. If this fraudulent goal is a success, you may get scammed out of a fee that equals the cost of the license for this product. It’s obvious what a bad idea it is to buy Security Monitor 2012, so you should not make such a serious mistake. Remember – if this particular application were not on your computer, you would have none of those problems because all the infections it claims to have spotted on your machine are not there, being just a part of the tactic.

Remove Strathclyde Police Ukash virus

14.12.2011 | Malware Type: Ransomware

Malware Description:
The creativity of the present-day hacktivists gets pretty astounding once in a while. They have been apparently shifting their endeavour lately to things like desktop locking. Along with the furious rounds of the fake Metropolitan Police alert, there comes a new version of it. This latest one is designed to look like it hails from Strathclyde Police Service. It says your IP address has been spotted to indulge in illegal online activity such as viewing child pornographic materials and scenes of violence. Generally, this species of the infection is called the Strathclyde Police Ukash virus. Ukash – because the criminals want to get you using this payment processing system to pay the ‘ransom’ or, legally speaking, the ‘fine’ for unblocking your system. Here is a fragment of text from this counterfeit message: “From this IP address it was visited sites containing banned scenes of violence against people, as well as viewing banned in the United Kingdom child pornographic materials”. Then, at the end, it goes this way: “The computer has been locked to prevent your illegal activities on the Internet. To unlock the computer you are obliged, within 48 hours of receiving this notice, to pay a fine of 100 GBP”. Mind the grammar of this message – it appears as though it was written by someone who is apparently not a native English speaker. So, what do you do to actually unlock your machine and stop this noxious alert from appearing further? Here’s the plan: reboot your PC. When the Operating System starts to load, keep hitting F8 to get into Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking. Then, go to this page and download the spyware removal tool below. Run a scan and get the trojan deleted. If anything goes wrong during this procedure, please let us know.

Remove Antivirii 2011 scareware from your PC where it doesn’t belong

12.12.2011 | Malware Type: Rogue Anti-Spyware

Malware Description:
Antivirii 2011 is the kind of program people should be wary about. One of the reasons for that is it’s a bogus tool. It means you should not expect any sort of genuine malware protection from it. Antivirii 2011 displays fake virus detection reports and then attempts to persuade its victims to buy the licensed copy so that those alleged infections can be eliminated. This awful program could have got on to your machine via a drive-by-download or through some blackhat SEO like a counterfeit online scan page people get redirected to by a trojan horse. Once inside your PC, this application feels like its master and even adjusts the system to itself by adding new Registry values, which means it gets executed each time the computer is turned on. The ordinary routine of Antivirii 2011 is about triggering phony pest scanners (see screenshot) that always come up with a list of pseudo detections it had supposedly made during the PC check. Among the purportedly spotted objects, there are Worm.Reclog.A, Trojan.Downloader.Phexsol.B, Backdoor.Sajdela, Adware.Hotbar, PWS.Frethog.gen.B and others. No matter how scary those may look and sound, you’d better keep in mind they are not on your workstation for real. This is just a component of the entrapment technique employed by this rogue software. The targeted trap is in making you waste your money on the commercial version of the program. However, you definitely do not need an inexistent full version of a fabricated antivirus, do you? So go ahead and do the only possible right thing in this situation, i.e. get rid of Antivirii 2011 scam for good.

Remove AV Secure 2012 virus disguised as a real PC protector

05.12.2011 | Malware Type: Rogue Anti-Spyware

Malware Description:
The virus detection and removal capabilities of AV Secure 2012 are under question, and that’s a real mild statement outlining the whole essence of this program. If you don’t mind, we’ll assume you found this particular article via a Search Engine when looking for some way to solve the problem of being constantly bombarded by obnoxious ads, scanners, whatnot. If that hypothesis of ours is true, you are dealing with a piece of the Internet evil which is a sample of scareware. AV Secure 2012 can attack users in a most unexpected way. It can make its way into your computer system through a backdoor or an exploit, i.e. some security vulnerability found by a downloader trojan associated with the badware distribution. What happens next is you start getting alerts – a lot of them. These by all means counterfeit popup messages reflect the purported state of your PC being badly contaminated with some unwanted stuff, such as trojans, keyloggers, rootkits, spyware etc. According to the hackers’ intent and anticipation, this should become an unambiguous stimulus for your immediate action. This action implied under the misinforming routine is for you to get yourself a licensed copy of AV Secure 2012 in order to get the bad items off your workstation. That’s not going to work though – at least, in the genuine way. Having been paid for, the application will show you that all the supposed infections were deleted, but that is such an illusion because none of those had been on your system in the first place. Still feel like sponsoring the international hacktivism? Hopefully not – in that case, do yourself a favour and uninstall AV Secure 2012 fraud now.

Remove Win 7 Antispyware 2012 scam offering deletion of mythical threats

29.11.2011 | Malware Type: Rogue Anti-Spyware

Malware Description:
No matter if you like it or not, Win 7 Antispyware 2012 does what it was trained to, i.e. attacks a PC, gradually ruins the system and deceives the user. This applies to a situation if your computer got infected with the rogue antivirus in question of course. If that did happen, you should definitely read this article and draw correct conclusions about how this virus ought to be treated. This parasite would exhibit itself somewhat differently if you were running a different Operating System (e.g. XP or Vista). But judging from the assumption that it’s Win 7 Antispyware 2012 you were looking up on the web, your system is Windows 7. Right? It can’t be anything else. When this particular pest contaminates your machine, your problems will keep getting more and more disastrous. First, you will have some hard time having to close fake scan windows and clicking the X buttons on numerous counterfeit popup notifications. Then, you discover that your browser won’t open the way it should, ‘welcoming’ you with a noxious alert about some weird virus called Trojan-BNK.Win32.Keylogger.gen allegedly preventing normal work of the browser. All in all, you will start understanding acutely that you are losing control over your workstation. Under these sad circumstances, some users tend to grab on to random first options to solve the awful issue. In that case, chances are they fall for Win 7 Antispyware 2012’s recommendations to buy its commercial copy. Well, doing so will actually address a part of the problem and the scareware may self-uninstall from your PC, having told you that all your viruses were deleted. But that’s a mere curtain concealing all the lies behind Win 7 Antispyware 2012 scam. So do not do such a silly thing, do not purchase the phony AV program that pretends to be your friend. Removal is the only sensible way out of this chaos that we know of.

Remove Cloud AV 2012 undoubtedly fake software

23.11.2011 | Malware Type: Rogue Anti-Spyware

Malware Description:
Cloud AV 2012, or Cloud Antivirus 2012 application is an outstanding deceiver. Its deeds are well-thought-out and its looks are quite genuine. But there’s a little aspect in between which makes this program a scam. It does not detect real viruses, unlike normal security tools. This means every item returned in its scan results is bogus or even an inexistent entity at all. At the beginning of its lifetime on your machine, Cloud AV 2012 creates a startup entry in your Registry. This single Registry value is very significant as its impact on the whole work of your PC eventually becomes a huge one. From that moment on, this utility will get executed each single time your computer turns on and Windows loads up. Then there’s this scan that mimics the malware check routine copied from legitimate antivirus apps. Like we mentioned, the list of detected objects is a fake so do not even bother looking them up on the web and how to get rid of them. Many users don’t know that though and get down to finding a way out of this alleged badware infestation. It’s not by chance that at this point Cloud AV 2012 offers you an easy fix, which is to activate its licensed copy and then eliminate all the infections with one click of the ‘Remove threats’ button on its interface. We assure you this won’t work the real way. Yes, the so-called trojans will disappear from the list of parasites found on your PC. But they were never there in the first place, remember? Also, registering the full version of Cloud AV 2012 costs money – and that’s exactly the key to its strategy. It wants user payments, pursuing no noble objectives at all. Therefore, there is not a single hint of doubt that this particular program must be uninstalled off your system in the shortest possible time. This will save your PC from invasion and keep you serene about your cyber privacy.

Remove Computer Fix malware posing as something else

20.11.2011 | Malware Type: Fake Security Programs

Malware Description:
Computer Fix is a pathetic copy of an average system optimization tool. On the outside, it appears to perform the same old tasks that are inherent to PC performance analysis and improvement utilities. But deep down, it does nil of what it should. Falsity of Computer Fix is a proven thing and calls forth absolutely no doubt in cyber community. Malware watchers state this application’s affiliation with a family of bogus optimizers which has existed for over a year by now. Some of the examples of its former counterparts are System Fix and Data Restore. Predictably, this program follows the same guidelines in terms of what it does when integrated into the host machine. The first signal you should pay attention to is a scan generated by Computer Fix. This scanner is counterfeit and it on most occasions pops up after the next system reboot you make since your workstation got infected with this trojan. The results list you get to see when this pseudo system check is through is definitely not something you can trust. The app says you are in trouble because tons of errors were detected during the scan. For instance, it claims to have spotted critically low hard drive rotational speed, drive C initializing error, badly damaged system files etc. Of course those messages sound alarming but once you realize Computer Fix is rogue software, it all becomes clear – you are simply being scammed by false positives about some imaginary problems you don’t have for real. This is why following this solution’s recommendations is pointless and certainly not an option. A correct algorithm of your action is to complete Computer Fix removal as soon as possible. This junkware does not belong on any Operating System, yours being no exception to this rule.

Remove AV Protection 2011 deceptive and devastating virus

17.11.2011 | Malware Type: Rogue Anti-Spyware

Malware Description:
AV Protection 2011 is a disgusting application that enters your computer without your permission and, when inside, acts like it’s a real master of the PC. Unauthorized installation is a key for large rate of this program’s propagation as no one would do something as silly as letting rogue software like this get in. It instead employs an alternative way of intrusion based on trojans. The basic patterns of functioning when this tool is actually on board result in some really annoying experience on your end. AV Protection 2011 runs scanners that are externally hardly any different from those displayed by most legitimate utilities of this kind. Although neat and good-looking, these scanners are simply a forged mock-up of what they should be in fact. This means the solution pretends to check your system for security problems, without really being able to find any. It returns a spooky list of results in the end, stating that trojan horses, adware and spyware signs were spotted on your machine. Along with the false scanning, AV Protection 2011 will as well be displaying some popup alerts denoting basically the same information, i.e. that your system is in danger because it’s full of malicious items. All of this is done for making you click the ‘sacred’ Remove Threats or Activate Protection buttons. Each one of them leads you to a payment screen designed for people to fill out their confidential payment details and purchase their copy of the software. But the understanding that AV Protection 2011 is a fake means you must abstain from providing your credit card info for buying its license. Another conclusion to draw is you need to get rid of this junk immediately.

Remove System Fix fake PC optimizer

15.11.2011 | Malware Type: Fake Security Programs

Malware Description:
System Fix program and fixing anything that is wrong with one’s computer are two unrelated things. It’s all even worse because the application called that way is in fact a phony computer optimizer. It gives you multiple vain promises to enhance your system’s performance, speed up the PC and eliminate all errors it has. Entering a computer is a piece of cake for System Fix. It can do that without having to be permitted by the user. It’s usually a matter of a trojan downloader virus that drops on to your PC as a result of some accidental or careless downloads made by the fraud victims. Typically, these files are disguised as something useful but actually simply serve to deliver the installer for the associated rogue inside your machine. When the trespassing phase is completed, System Fix goes on turning things upside down. It twists facts about the performance level of your system by triggering absurd scanners and different bogus system tray alerts. We got no doubt these ads are falsified. They tell you that a whole bunch of severe errors were found on your computer and must be addressed immediately. There is but one direction System Fix lures you towards: getting you to purchase its commercial copy. It assures you that doing so will become a miracle cure for all the internal illnesses your machine allegedly has. We strongly recommend you do contrariwise, i.e. delete System Fix badware and ignore all of the tips it gives you. Once the pest is gone, all these problems will vanish as well.