Urgent virus help needed!

[Adam Virgo's Shirt]

My PC has been infected by a virus! I have Virgin Media broadband, and have their PC Guard installed so don't know how it happened!

The virus is an anti virus program which tells me I have loads of viruses/trojans, and to remove them I need to pay $20 by entering my credit card details into a dodgy looking website! Obviously some kind of phishing scam!

The only program I can open is IE, as trying to open anything else just gives me a message from the dodgy virus software telling me the .exe file is infected!

I have rebooted the PC, and it goes straight to the report screen of the dodgy software telling me about all the viruses I allegedly have!

Can anyone advise please? I'm really worried because I have 2 essays on here which if I don't finish them and submit in time, I will fail both my OU courses!!! I tried going to Start to restore it back to yesterday, but the help and support area won't open either!

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Is it spywaredoctor ?

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

You want to get him off IMDB and onto here

 

[Westdene Seagull]

My PC has been infected by a virus! I have Virgin Media broadband, and have their PC Guard installed so don't know how it happened!

The virus is an anti virus program which tells me I have loads of viruses/trojans, and to remove them I need to pay $20 by entering my credit card details into a dodgy looking website! Obviously some kind of phishing scam!

The only program I can open is IE, as trying to open anything else just gives me a message from the dodgy virus software telling me the .exe file is infected!

I have rebooted the PC, and it goes straight to the report screen of the dodgy software telling me about all the viruses I allegedly have!

Can anyone advise please? I'm really worried because I have 2 essays on here which if I don't finish them and submit in time, I will fail both my OU courses!!! I tried going to Start to restore it back to yesterday, but the help and support area won't open either!

Natsy one this and one I've had - good news is that your data should be recoverable. Bad news is that the I ended up having to rebuild my PC to get rid of the thing.

To get to your data, boot into safe mode - as windows loads ( straight after the BIOS load - usually text at the top of a black screen ) press F8. You'll get a text menu of which one option is Safe Mode. Select this. Once booted the screen will look rather chunky but you should be able to plug in a USB memory stick and copy any data over. At least then you'll be able to load it onto another PC.

 

[readingstockport]

Get hold of SPYBOT (NOT spybotaware) and ADAWARE and run those.

 

[Adam Virgo's Shirt]

You want to get him off IMDB and onto here

Have you spoken to him this morning? He does reckon it was IDMB that has caused it! He is sleeping in the garden tonight for sure!!

I don't have enough USB storage to get everything off here as I have about 20GB including music! I do also have unlimited backup with Virgin, but can't get into it to check it is up to date either!

I sincerely hope I don't have to rebuild! Does anyone know of another method?

 

[Stoo82]

Get hold of SPYBOT (NOT spybotaware) and ADAWARE and run those.

I would recomend this also. From what i remember it was FREE.

 

[beorhthelm]

yes, get important data off first then look at a reinstall job. when reinstalling, if you dont reformat it should keep all the data anyway, but virus too of course, so you have to get adaware/spybot and decent AV on sharpish.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Always willing to help in these situations. I'd recommend ditching the PC and buying a Mac.

 

[glasfryn]

Stopzilla...............I paid for lifetime cover and updates, had no problems about £40

 

[Adam Virgo's Shirt]

Get hold of SPYBOT (NOT spybotaware) and ADAWARE and run those.

I've tried both SPYWARE and ADAWARE. It gets as far as me selecting run twice then the virus crap cuts in again and it wont go any further!!!!!

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

I had a similar virus after opening a "greeting card" email
I ran a system restore to a date before opening the email and then ran a virus scan which caught the offending trojan.

 

[happypig]

You could boot using a linux live cd such as knoppix. That will give you a pretty useable machine (although it will tie up your DVD drive). You can then copy to an external hard drive - you might need to buy one but they are always good to have for backups anyway.

 

[theonesmith]

I've tried both SPYWARE and ADAWARE. It gets as far as me selecting run twice then the virus crap cuts in again and it wont go any further!!!!!

Spyware and adaware will do jack all to that. Really mate you need something better than the virgin guard program you have- I know hindsight is a wonderful thing. Maybe invest in Norton or McAfee after this is dealt with.

For now- have you tried the add/remove program thing? Sometimes you can just uninstall it from there..

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

googling on how to remove the anti virus program might tell you what other peeps who have been infected have done.

 

[Adam Virgo's Shirt]

googling on how to remove the anti virus program might tell you what other peeps who have been infected have done.

I don't know whay I didn't think of that first! Panic I guess! Have just been reading through, and there are loads of people with the same problem. Seems this virus blocks ctrl-alt-del and also your USB ports so you can't get data off!

Bf is bringing home an IT techie from work to try and sort it cos I'm completely lost now!

 

[MARKO]

Phone Virgin Broadband....tell them the problem and they should help you.This happened to a mate of mine

 

[warlingham seagull]

I had one of these some time back from watching live football via a website.
Tried everything and as a last resort did a system restore to a point before the problem occurred. Did it for me -and no more watching dodgy football sites.
Malwarebytes - free - might also be worth a try - it found 5 trojans on mine which all others had failed to find

 

[theonesmith]

I had one of these some time back from watching live football via a website.
Tried everything and as a last resort did a system restore to a point before the problem occurred. Did it for me -and no more watching dodgy football sites.
Malwarebytes - free - might also be worth a try - it found 5 trojans on mine which all others had failed to find

It SAID it found 5 trojans on yours. To be honest, the only free program I would recommend is Adaware- and that is merely to keep spam and adware off your computer. Everyone using the internet should invest in a decent anti virus program- Norton, McAfee etc. As they generally save this happening.

 

[theonesmith]

Also- any HSBC customers- if you have online banking HSBC were offering a years free deal with McAfee- Well worth taking up.