Source -Our friends on the Microsoft support team tell us that they’ve heard a lot of complaints lately about Win32/FakeRean, a rogue antivirus program that claims to scan your computer for viruses and spyware and displays fake warnings.
Win32/FakeRean isn’t new. According to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC) blog, this nasty little rogue has been around since at least August of last year. The MMPC also reports that Win32/FakeRean goes by different names and different looking interfaces and can customize itself according to which operating system you’re running.
Here are some of the fake names that Win32/FakeRean uses:
- Antispyware Vista
- Desktop Defender 2010
- PC Security 2009
- Security Central
- XP Antispyware 2009 or 2010
For more information, including a long list of other names for this rogue software, see Malware Protection Center: Win32/FakeRean.
If you have accidentally downloaded this software, you might see a warning that looks like this:
Or you might see a window that looks like this:
For a list of the most widespread threats to computers right now, see View active malware.
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Common sense would dictate that anytime anything pops up on your system that you did not install, it's time to start investigating it. It really is amazing how many times I've had to clean out other peoples PC's because they saw the pop up and just blindly clicked on it. I know, they do make them look very professional. But nonetheless, people need to be more aware of what's on their system and what programs they put on/are on them.
IF!! Youu get lucky enough to be able to run Malwarebytes once this pest is on your system you should be able to get "most" of it out. But once they execute theres only one real cure.
I see 5 to 10 systems a month with these infections. They seem to run up about every 3 to 5 months. Then the realtime protection most people have catches up and starts stopping them.
The only good thing about any of them is they keep paying the ITs rent.
my friends laptop got infected by XP antivirus 2008 and i kill them all with Combofix
FAKERS!!!
I have just spent the best part of 6 hours cleaning an infected machine (W7)
415 infected files and "Desktop Defender" AV.
The owners biggest worry was they kept getting redirected to a poker site!!
The infection was much deeper than that, the browser redirect was annoying but harmless.
I had the joy of dealing with this nasty virus a little over a month ago on this very laptop. I dont know how I got it...I did not download anything but somehow woke up that morning, booted it up and there it was! I would click the x to close it and a few seconds later... another warning would pop up. After about 15 min of trying to see why my virus scan (MS Security Essentials) wasnt catching it, I shut it down, went to the desktop and downloaded Malwarebytes and put it on a USB stick. I then booted the laptop back up in safe mode and installed it and did a scan. This took care of it and I havent had an Issue with it since.
I had a friend from school who wasnt as fortunate with this same bug. He had apparently been trying to continue to use his laptop despite the virus for a while and I gave him the Malwarebytes and it said it got rid of it but when he rebooted normally, it was still there. I recommended the SUPERantispyware and havent heard if that helped better.
It seems that possibly the longer its on your system, the more damage it does???
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