Most virus or malware infections at the moment are introduced using “social engineering”. They do not install themselves without you knowing, they instead use tactics to encourage you to install them without realising.
One horrible example is “Personal Antivirus”. Recently, we have had a couple of calls where clients are being told that they have hundreds of infections on their PC. Each infection warning is more dire than the last – ‘this virus deletes files’, ‘this trojan steals credit card numbers’, ‘this virus eats your first-born’…
In fact, they have only one infection – “Personal Antivirus”. At some point they have clicked on a link, disguised like a warning from Windows. They are cleverly designed to look like warnings from Windows Security Center [sic] or the little activex warnings that Internet Explorer pops up at the top of the page.
Once you’ve clicked on the link, you’ve installed “Personal Antivirus”. Hurrah, you must be safe now? Well, no, because all this software does is throw up more warnings, telling you that you are visting infected websites or have all these infections. The interface looks very much like an old version of AVG and incredibly genuine.
Until you click on the button to clean the infection. Which is when it asks you for your credit card details so that you can activate the antivirus software. Run away, fast!
There is no entry in Add / Remove programs for “Personal Antivirus” and selecting the close option does nothing.
Fortunately, something like the wonderful Malwarebytes’ Antimalware package can clean it easily. You can download it for personal use for free.
And if you must use free antivirus software, use something decent, like AVG. Better still, or for business use, buy something good. We’re resellers for AVG and the wonderful ESET range.
A Microsoft Certified Professional with many years of large corporate experience and training, he now focuses on helping small businesses make the most of their IT.
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