computer virus help needed!

[Dave Budd]

My computer has gone and picked up an STD and I can't work out how to get rid of it!

I'm not that computer savvy (If I can't belt it to make it work then it's not user fixable!), so my attempts have been very limited!

I have the free AVG virus check thingy on and I ran it yesterday morning, it cleaned away a couple of little things and was all happy and clear

Then yesterday evening I hit alink to something that was bugged in some way, lots of boxes popped up and vanished in a blink of an eye and then everything was obscured by the screen having a fake frontage from the Met police/Scotland Yard proclaiming that my computer has material of an illegal nature involving chidren, violence, money laundering, etc, etc and that they have locked my computer. The lock can be released if I use one of the methods listed to send them £100. Yeah right!

I managed to get the internet up by right clicking on a word in the text and searching for it using google, from there I was able to open a window and send out this cry for help! Nothing I press seems to do anything, I have managed to run the AVG thing again (having downloaded an update this afternoon) and it thinks the computer is clean, which it blatently is not.

So and computer geeks out there, can you please help!!!!

I posted this up on BB earlier and had a few helpful pointers but they have all failed to sort it. none of the seek and destroy downloads have fulfilled their brief and the ransomware specific walk through has hit a road block. This is doing my nut!

 

[cbrdave]

Try downloading malwarebytes anti malware, its free and helprd me out a few times

 

[Sanji]

When you get malwarebytes downloaded and installed, restart computer and press either f8/f9 (cant remember which button exactly) at startup to go into safe mode, then run malware bytes and avg in safe mode! Should clean out virus ect.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[Dave Budd]

nope, tried them earlier. They both found stuff and cleared it away, but neither found the offending jobby

It's the apparently well known "police ransomware" variety of malware, but I can't find a seek and kill to do the job

 

[udamiano]

Hi dave

here is a link that give you instructions on how to get rid of it
http://deletemalware.blogspot.com/2011/06/remove-metropolitan-police-ransomware.html

 

[bikething]

Just put this reply on BB

Same as I had - the entry is correct but 'explorer.exe' has been replaced by a fake file..
Do a search of your windows directory for another copy of explorer.exe (In my case I found one that had the same date and timestamp, but was a different size) and copy it over the fake one... I found one in C:\windows\ServicePackFiles\i386
once I'd done that and rebooted I had my desktop, but some of the taskbar icons were missing so I did a system restore back to 1 week previous, and rebooted again... which seems to have got the system back to normal...

 

[bikething]

..then run malware bytes and avg in safe mode! Should clean out virus ect.

I'm running AVG and it neither stopped the virus, nor found it when scanning in safe mode after the virus hit

 

[The Big Lebowski]

I've had fair success with Kaspersky Portable for the PITA stuff.... Its free and runs off a USB flash (once installed on said flash)

http://www.pendriveapps.com/kaspersky-virus-removal-tool/

 

[Apparition]

Hey! My first post on the forum. I'm a bit of a lurker, but I had this exact problem today and managed to work things out after the other solutions didn't work for me. Here's how I fixed it (from memory).

1. Figure out a way to get to your start menu if you're being blocked. Pressing CTRL + ALT + DELETE worked for me.

2. Go in to 'All programs'. Then in to the 'Startup' folder. You'll probably see something that looks like it doesn't belong. My entry was something like 1.232455.exe

3. Right click over the dodgy file and click 'properties to show you to where that .exe file is. This info is in the 'target' box.

4. Open up 'My computer' and head to the location that was specified. Find the .exe file with the same name and delete it. Sometimes you can right click it and it'll give you the option to scan it with your anti-virus software. May be worth doing that if possible.

5. Once you've deleted that file, delete its shortcut from the 'startup' folder.

6. Run your anti virus software to tidy up. I use 'CC Cleaner', 'Iobit Malware fighter', and 'iobit advanced system care'. My computers been running like a dream all day. I'm sure there's an easier and quicker way to go about all that, but it worked for me.

HAPPY HUNTING!

 

[Dave Budd]

Many thanks all for your help with this! :You_Rock_ I ran a whole bunch of the downloads that people suggested,some didn't find anything new but one or two seemed to find loads that the others missed. In the end I think the Avast, malwarebytes and Stinger got the nasty dealt with

I'm just glad that forums such as this are so heavily frequented by computer geeks! :biggthump I was having a bad week as it was before the computer went balls up. By Friday morning I had lost two days work due to my car being in the garage (mostly electical issues!), then the computer and nothing that I had tried to that point was workiing. I was going spare trying to get a microsoft sweeper thing to work, then the garage called to say that it would be a couple more days and another £100+ due to the wrong connectors on the part. At that point I had a minor meltdown, borrowed my housemate's car and headed to the workshop to get something constructive done! After a day and a half I was ready to come home and have another try with the blessed machine.

Thanksully it is all now sorted, I hope.

So once again, thankyou all for your techy knowhow!

 

[ged]

... Thanksully it is all now sorted, I hope. ...

In future, to avoid problems like this, you might want to be more careful with your browsing.

Are you using Internet Explorer? If so, try switching to Firefox.

The best way to avoid all this trouble is to run GNU/Linux instead of Windows. You can put both on the same computer, and even run them both at the same time if you really want to. You don't really want to.

 

[rik_uk3]

Linux is good, but a bit geeky, not as simple to install as Windows, certainly Windows 7. Dave, install a good anti virus, I use Microsoft Security Essentials and set it to auto update. I use the net a heck of a lot and this programme has popped up a couple of times and saved my bacon so to speak.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/default.aspx

The big thing to learn is backing up your data, use DVD's or an external drive and backup on a regular basis all your important files. If your machine goes mammary up in the future and your personal data is safe I'd just do a clean install of Windows, easier and quick than scrubbing your existing system.

 

[ged]

Linux is good, but a bit geeky, not as simple to install as Windows ...

http://www.ubuntu.com/

 

[jonajuna]

I second ubuntu. Not geeky and in recent comparison reviews just a couple of percentage points behind win 7 overall. If compared just on security would be infinitely ahead. I dual boot my machines so have windows for all those windows progs needed and ubuntu for the Internet. Though ubuntu is the one running most of time. Did I mention its completely free? To install download to cd and run.... Its as easy as any windows install... Easier in some cases

Sent via tapatalk from my shiny sgs2

 

[Dave Budd]

i did have ubuntu on my previous computer for a short while. had to scrap it on account of the fact that the few computer programs that I do know how to use for image processing and my website wouldn't work with it!

 

[rik_uk3]

I've got 'Mint' on a laptop, real PITA getting drivers. Bung in a W7 disk and it just works. I keep meaning to play more with linux but W7 is just so good and works with my programmes well so why mess about.

 

[Maxip]

My single piece of advise to reduce the chances of malware is NEVER run your PC with an administrator account!! If you run as a user, the system will prompt for admin password if / when something tries to change a system program, file, etc. It does mean that you get prompted to use admin password when doing legitimate activities BUT you also get prompted when malware is trying to make a change - if you don't know what the prompt is for, say no.....

AV, firewalls, etc are all great but a simple approach (user accounts) can reduce the chances of any infections greatly.

 

[Tadpole]

I disagree, it’s fine if you know what you are doing, and you know what should be allowed and what shouldn’t. But if you don’t know, all that you’ll end up doing is allowing nothing, you’ll be too scared to say yes to the right stuff and all you will do is say no to everything, and that will delay the updating of your operating system making you Vulnerable to system infection.

Infections on systems happen, crashes happen, power spikes that trash your drive happen. And the best way round is take reasonable precautions, AVG or AVAST, or windows essentials and the like will stop most of the Infections, Spybot Search and destroy will help if you remember to run it and keep them up-to-date.

Don’t leave you machine running or connected to the net when you don’t really need to, even with broadband it is ok to turn the machine off. Spike arrestors are a great precaution, and reasonably cheap. But the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself is BACK UP your system, often and regular.
DVDs are cheap (but don’t get cheap DVDs) external hard drives are great for backing up files that change often. Flash drives are perfect. But all are a waste of time unless you use them.
Habits are not always bad, get into good habits and you’ll save a whole world of pain when your system is killed, disable or unavailable for a week or so.
There is no one simple way to protect your data, but there is several ways to simply protect your data.

 

[sandbender]

"...My single piece of advise to reduce the chances of malware is NEVER run your PC with an administrator..."

"...I disagree, it’s fine if you know what you are doing, and you know what should be allowed and what shouldn’t. But if you don’t know, all that you’ll end up doing is allowing nothing..."

Seriously? In windows land it is the norm to always run as an administrator? Over here in Ubuntu and Apple land I never run as an admin, although I'm not sure if that is normal in Apple land.

 

[rik_uk3]

And backup the backups, and store offline. Dropbox is private, useful for photo's/docs and I use photobucket. I don't turn my PC off though (I turn the monitor off) and have not had malware/virus problems for an age.