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The pop-up window that ruined my PC!
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Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday! I hope everyone had a safe and great Thanksgiving holiday. I know I'm a few pounds heavier, but I enjoyed the celebration and was fortunate enough to gather with some family members that I haven't seen in awhile. Now, it's full steam ahead for the holidays. And if you haven't checked out the CNET Holiday Tech guide, give it a whirl to get some great gift ideas and product recommendations from our editors.
Now let's tackle Royce's nasty pop-up window that infected his computer.
Well Royce, our members have poured in their support with plenty of incredibly helpful advice. They generated a few posts shy of 200 responses with a mixture of folks who also experienced the deceiving pop-ups that infected your PC, to folks giving advice on preventative measures, to suggestions for how to deal with an infection by this nasty Trojan. I can almost assure you that if you read through this entire discussion, you'll be much more knowledgeable about these pop-ups that can cause havoc to your machine.
One particular bit of advice I must point out that was repeatedly mentioned by our members is to never click on any pop-ups you do not trust or are uncertain about. As member GEO2003 pointed out: keep in mind that hackers program buttons on these pop-ups whether it is the 'Install,' 'Cancel,' or even the 'X' to close the window, they all do the same thing--run the infections program.
So be supercareful of what you click on. You should get a trusted antivirus/spyware program and even a browser that will provide protection against these type of pop-up intrusions.
I've selected a few answers to get you started in the Q&A section, and if you have more information to share, be sure to post it in the discussion. Thanks for your contributions and have a great weekend everyone!
Cheers!
- Lee
Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com
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Lee Koo
CNET Community manager
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Last week's question
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The pop-up window that ruined my PC!
 Last summer, a screen popped up on my computer saying that my
computer had all sorts of harmful files on it and said that
it would scan and remove them. I clicked on "OK" and the
software started running and it ruined my computer, blocking
my Trend Micro PCillin Internet Security antivirus and
preventing any upgrades. I had to get my computer guru to
completely wipe out my hard drive and reinstall my
applications and what files she could save. She then
installed Malwarebytes Anti-Malware program the make sure the
bad application was wiped out.
She told me to not shut down if this ever happened again, but
to run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and then Trend Micro before
shutting down.
On Friday the 13th, a similar thing happened. The bad
application said its name was "SWP2009" and offered itself
for purchase. I could not delete or minimize it, but was able
to shift its screen to where I was able to get to my
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware icon. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
responded and started running. I did a complete scan and
Malware found six rogue files. It deleted them and rebooted
my computer. Everything seemed OK, but I ran Trend Micro to
be sure. Trend found 13 items, which it deleted. All this
took some 4 hours.
Has anyone else encountered similar rogue software? What else
can be done? I thought my anti-malware and antivirus
applications would stop this, but they didn't. Apparently it
was connected to some Web site I opened. I'm running Windows
XP Home.
-- Submitted by:
Royce B.
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