If you face popups and other warnings to download web/system security software

[beef_jerky4104]

If you have seen the commercials for "Stop Sign" Anti-Virus I recommend that you do not download it. The scam is that you download it for a free scan and then they say your infected. You buy there software. I saw the commercial and tested it. It said I had like 20 viruses. McAfee (Virus and Spyware) said I was fine. So don't download this fakeware.

 

[kitty500cat]

It sounds as if they've had their problems with deceptive advertising and false postives. See HERE for more information.

Regards

 

[momok]

Hi,

Several rogue programs make use of deceptive advertising and hard sell marketing tactics, including installing spyware and adware on your system to make you purchase their products, with no true guarantee of cleaning your system. Some often identify legitimate system files as false positives on your system, and recommend cleaning these "so-called bad files" through purchase of their software.

More often than not, downloading and paying for these programs often lead to even more infections and further damage to your system files and security.

This site, which kitty500cat has kindly posted for us, has several information on such software. Please check with the site before downloading any potential trojans/spyware, especially when your system starts flashing popup warnings or a little red/blue shield appears on your tray, warning you of trojans, spyware and the like.

Another good way of checking would be to google the program in a search engine. Often, rogue programs would turn up hits providing methods of removal etc.

If you find yourself infected by such popups, please read this thread. This is because malware infections can often possibly lead to identity theft, loss of funds from bank accounts, misuse of credit card information etc.

Should you decide to clean your computer, please go ahead to Viruses/Spyware/Malware, preliminary removal instructions and follow the steps given. Do follow all the instructions exactly.

Thereafter, please open a new thread in this forum and post fresh HijackThis, AVG Antispyware and Combofix logs as attachments. Do not copy and paste your logs if not it will be ignored and/or removed.

Also, please provide us the results of the AVG Antirootkit scan.


Regards,
Your friendly momok =)

 

[kitty500cat]

Thanks for the clarification, momok.

Twice, when I was on Metacafe, it redirected me to DriveCleaner's website and gave me a popup saying that my hard drive needed to be cleaned. Fortunately I was using the Opera web browser in Linux, so it didn't harm me. But If I would've been using Internet Explorer in Windows, it might have exploited something and installed itself on my computer.

That's another reason to use alternative browsers.