PC virus infection

Our Laptop become very sick recently, it all started with what looks like a Windows balloon that pops up from the taskbar to warn of a “security problem”.

However, clicking this balloon unleashes an onslaught of warnings – most of them fake.

The first appears to be a genuine Windows Defender Trojan warning.

This Windows warning gave away the name of the bug.

The next thing you now the default browser launches (in this case Firefox) and a “Reported Attack Site” Warning.

Clicking on either of these buttons launches another browser based virus warning.

Even clicking on “Cancel” here opens the so called “Antivirus 2009”.

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The next thing you know we’re on a web page designed to look like “My Computer” in WindowsXP claiming numerous infections.

Had I been running XP (instead of Vista) with I.E. as my default browser (instead of Firefox) this could have looked very real.

A full scan using the installed McAfee Antivirus, and a few different online scans, failed to pick up any infection.

A quick check of the start up programmes on the lap top revealed two new programmes…

“a.exe” and “tmpb.exe” are both new.

A check of our browsing history shows my wife had Googled “Pamela Anderson” and had checked a few of the results pages at the time these files were installed.

I tried numerous ways to clear the laptop of this bug, without success, and ended up resorting to a clean install of Windows.

Be Warned – If you want to know about Pamela Anderson, stick to Baywatch re-runs!