There have been a lot of fake antivirus infections lately. I’m getting several calls a week from people telling me that while they were searching the internet, windows started popping up all over their screen telling them they have viruses, trojans, etc. I used to spend hours cleaning computers with various antivirus programs, but then found that I could do it much quicker by using the following method.
When this problem comes up, I ask what the user has or hasn’t clicked on. What they say next is what determines my next course of action. The way these programs work is that they “offer” to clean up your computer if you buy their software. If you choose not to buy their software, and try to click out of the windows by clicking cancel or the red x to close the window, you’re faced with more windows because these options have been set up to download the fake antivirus program and install it on your computer.
So, what to do when one of these programs shows up on your computer? Don’t panic and start clicking things. Recognize that even though it may look like a legitimate Windows warning, if you have a virus, your own antivirus program will pop up telling you so. What you need to do is to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up the Task Manager and then end the browser process. Once you’ve ended the browser this way, you can safely reopen the browser and continue your surfing.
If, however, you have clicked an option and these windows are just continually taking over your screen, reboot your computer. Just as it starts to come up and you see the opening text on the screen, start pressing the F8 key until you get a menu on the screen. Choose to boot into Safe Mode. The screen will look different from what you’re used to, but that’s okay. Once you are at the desktop, click your start button, bottom left of the screen. Go to Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. When System Restore comes up, choose to restore your computer to a point prior to when you experienced the problem. This could be earlier that day or even a day or two past.
This will not remove any files or data you have worked on or created in that time period, but will restore your Windows system back to a healthy state. Your computer will reboot once and tell you whether it was restored successfully or not. If it was successful, run a virus scan with your antivirus program, but you should be all set at this point.
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