I fell for a program like this about a year ago and just had another one up pop up the other day. This one was called system tools so I deleted it (it was saved FOUR different places on my computer!!) and the "click here" prompts went away before my kids could click there when I wasn't around.
Sneaky programs....
This fun little virus was one of the nastiest I've ever encountered in my 10+ years of computing. Sadly my husband thought System Tools was real and things went downhill from there. LOL
To me systems restore is a next to last option (with the last being a drive reformat) because depending on how far back you go you might end up losing some "legitimate" programs.
I'm guessing the step by steps you found referenced 'malwarebytes'. That's killed a couple viruses on computers for me at work. It's been very good. If you do have an internet capable computer, but the one you want to clean isn't, you can save a program onto a flash drive and bring that to the infected computer.
This is exactly what I had to do with this virus. System Tools had our other computer completely shut down where it no longer recognized the hard drive (or that's what it was telling us anyway). I now have rkill and malwarebytes on a flash drive and will keep it near our computers at all times. The little portable trick worked quite well.
As I understood it from a geek I know he said with Systems Restore often the thing that attacked your computer is still hiding somewhere. Personally I'd rather be rid of the bug entirely so I rarely do a Restore and instead try to completely capture and eliminate the critter.
I had to run a program called rkill first then the malware one you spoke of-I like
www.bleepingcomputer.com- they are very helpful there
Yep, it was rkill first and malwarebytes second. Doing them in that order was the only way we could do it because our computer was completely out of commission.
rkill actually STOPS/TURNS OFF the process/virus that's currently working to shut down your computer so you are
then able to run a virus program.
The System Tools fakeware wouldn't even let me get to my own desktop. It duplicated my real desktop with all the files and folders organized on it the same way my real desktop is. Pretty real looking! *scary*
If it was antimalware doctor, I wish you good luck.
My work computer had a popup at about 2pm Tuesday. I ignored it, but it started acting strange. By 4pm, it had frozen and upon restarting- it no longer recognized that it had a hard drive.
Long story short, after a very long day we had to reformat and install ubuntu because it was refurbished and buying a full install of windows would cost more than buying a new computer all together. I haven't read that anybody else has had that issue, but we have protective software installed (including the rkill and malwarebytes everybody suggests for this EXACT problem) and it did nothing.
Yep, ours no longer recognized it's hard drive and would only show the fake desktop screen.
rkill and malwarebytes ON the computer wouldn't have helped. We had to go into the computer via external means..........meaning we had to download rkill and malwarebytes on a flash drive/memory stick from a clean computer and get the sick computer up and running that way. There was absolutely no accessing the affected computer otherwise.
I'm sorry, I forgot the rkill step. That will stop the process from running so it can be cleaned. Bleeping computer is another one with step-by-step that I have used.
I've never used rkill or malwarebytes as a PREVENTATIVE measures, just as CLEANING measures.
Exactly. It being
on a computer won't do squat in a situation like this because your computer is, for the most part, now just a paperweight. A very expensive paperweight.
I wasn't using them as a preventative measure, but I already had them on the computer in case something came up. I figure if I have all that hard drive space I can dedicate some of it in case I find myself in a bind. An early response when I noticed something was up was to run rkill and spyware doctor... rkill froze the system rather than helping.
After a couple tries I got it to run completely, then malwarebytes froze- causing the restart where it no longer recognized its own hard drive. It was FAST.
What happened was that the virus went as far as to actually
shut down your installed virus programs. Having them
on your computer did nothing to help you, sadly.
Make a copy of rkill and malwarebytes on a memory stick and keep it close by for times like these.
As I said before this was a very tricky one to get rid of. I hope to never encounter it again but that's doubtfull. LOL
-i.e reformat your hard drive. Malwarebytes froze because portions of its needed files had been deleted-and by the time you rebooted enough of the operating system was gone that the computer threw a Non system or disk error-it wasnt that it didnt recognize its hard drive-it just recognized it as blank.
. Good thing my oldest DS was here. My scan showed 36 infected items. Tried to get rid of them every way but couldn't. Had to do a total dump. After reinstalling and many many updates I'm back up and running clean.
