Anyone had the "Security Tool" virus?

[UnquietDad]

It seems a nasty little bugger.

I have a PC Man coming to sort me out tomorrow, but wondered if I can know what to expect / can do anything in the meantime.

This virus makes your computer seize up (because it is poorly coded, apparently) and makes things slow or even inactive on your desktop.

In the meantime, it plagues you with constant pop-ups and "update" balloons claiming you are infected with this, that and the other - keyloggers, trojans, you name it - and that only "Security Tool" can sort them out.

It's basically a scaremongering virus whose ultimate aim is to make you link to a pay site and will take your credit card details. While I would never be foolish enough to do this, I still can't use my PC properly until I get it sorted out.

I've read elsewhere, though, that you can't remove it without their software.

I know all these things are basically created by sniggering 19-year-old nerds called Ned with appalling personal hygiene who live with their moms and consider wanking over Britney Spears in a chatroom to be a social activity, and who would probably be doing a Columbine if they weren't devising this kind of entertainment. But that doesn't help to make it any better at the moment.

Loving the image of the nerds. Cant offer advice though but there are a rediculously large quantity of profiterring virus creators about at the moment. biggest one i can think of at the mo is norton....

hope you get it sorted. Have you tried to shut it down via task manager processes? it might stop it shooving so much crap in your path.

will give that a go! thanks...

you could post it on tech support forum, run hijack this log and post the results and the tech guys will usually be able to help..its free so they tend to be inundated so can take 48 hours to answer...the guys on there are equally nerdy but older and probably wank over computer software programmes

Viruses are not created by sniggering 19 year old nerds, they are created by international criminal businesses as probably their least repulsive line of business.

Do you pay for PC support? Why isn't some decent Internet Security software included?

Had something similar and was able to use another computer to google for fixes. Got one free so just followed the instructions and all was then well. Horrible thing though and pretty convincing looking.

I wonder if it's the same one I'm dealing with tonight. It popped up in a little grey box saying something along the lines of "You are at risk!! Trojans and something or other else are infecting your PC and have access to your passwords so do you want to fix it?" I clicked exit as the double exclamation marks made me doubt it was genuine.

Then a large page, which looked like the page that pops up when you click control panel, opened and there was red writing flashing on and off again saying something about trojans and spyware.

Ran a Nortons check but it didn't detect anything but I haven't renewed since March. Just kept clicking "Remind me in 15 days" . Have looked for the disk tonight but can't find it. Will have a proper look tomorrow.

Bit worried about signing into anything like email or Ebay until I find the disk though. Is this wise or is it not that serious?

Amandoh,

It sounds like what you saw was just an "advert" that popped up from a web page. They designer spends time to try and make it look like a proper Windows warning message, which is sort of funny when you get them popping up on a Mac.

Ignore it.

Also be careful Googling for fixes, unless you know that you can trust the source the "fix" could itself be just another attack. Particularly on Windows once you download and run something it has the potential to do just about anything on your computer...

You've got to update your anti-virus though. Viruses change so often that it's important to keep the checker up to date. There are numerous free and very good anti-virus packages around such as AVG that should be as good as Norton. Ask on here if you want more advice on which one to use.

Finally download Ad-Aware for free from www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

That's a great tool for checking if anything bad has slipped through onto your PC and is making the "virus warnings" pop up.

Hi Badgers Paws,

Thanks for replying. I hadn't thought about it being an advert. That would make sense though.

Anyway, it was bothering me so DP contacted Nortons help on the laptop and they updated this pc from there. Bloody clever. DP ran a scan and the only thing it detected was something called a "Cookie chaser".

I've certainly learnt my lesson about updating when it suggests. DP was still typing away to the Nortons tech at 3.30am and he wasn't making happy noises. The noises didn't get any happier when the alarm went off at 6.15am either.

Ooh, I fear Mr Anchovy is having a little go at me. Yes, I am stupid enough to run my computer without any protection whatsoever. Alternatively, I have AntiVir, Zone Alarm firewall, and run CleanUp and Windows Care on a regular basis, and yet the little bugger still slipped through. Which is the more likely scenario??

Not trying to have a go at you, sorry. But whatever protection you have, it has obviously not done its job. None of the free products offers the same protection as a good integrated security suite.

Well, I had Norton for a couple of years and that was a nightmare. Slow, clunky, tenacious...

The guy who gave my PC a service earlier this year (and who is currently sorting it out) said I have the best protection with thiose products, plus Malwarebytes which I didn't mention.

I agree that norton is a nightmare but then again it is actually a virus itself and you cant remove it stupid fucking nortons particularly annoying when you put a differen companies virus checker (sophos) which works much more efficiently but is plagued by norton running in background and throwing hissy fits every 5 mins.

However do agree with MrAnchovy as some of my worst virus experiences and blue screen of death moments have been with avg virus software.