"Vista Defender" Malware?

[The Bushranger]

Does anybody know anything about a "Vista Defender 2010" malware thing that pretends to be antivirus/antimalware and blocks your Internet? I just got it. :smallfrown:

Doing System Restore seems to have killed it, thank God...

[Eldritch Knight]

Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware as soon as possible. System Restore DOES NOT kill it, just makes it hidden. I also recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. Trust me, this is one nasty that requires more effort to kill then the Tarrasque.

[sofawall]

This (http://www.windowvistarepair.com/guides/desktop-defender-2010-removal.php) looks like it might be what you're talking about.

[The Dark Fiddler]

There's been several threads already about the family of viruses; there's XP and Windows 7 versions too, and there seem to be a few variants for each system (Defender, Antivirus, etc.)

Pretty nasty virus from what I've heard, puts itself in the registry.

[The Bushranger]

MalwareBytes it is. Right after we get the AVG remover, since AVG8 seems to have the side effect of making it impossible to download things...

*sigh*

PS - MalwareBytes will kill it, right? I have mom downloading it onto a disc for me now (since that should get around the AVG download problem).

[Emlyn]

It might but this guide from techspot (www.techspot.com/vb/topic58138.html) is very thourough and should be followed. I'd recomend you post on their site as they are very good at helping you get things working. Otherwise you could also do the manual unistal of it. If you google "Vista Defender 2010 removal" the first hit has a list of all the files you need to delete. Just make sure that you are in safe mode when you do that.

[The Bushranger]

Aha, thanks. I'll run MalwareBytes tonight, then tomorrow download the other programs there onto a disk to run here at home.

I just wish I knew where the blasted thing came from. I don't run P2P or anything like that...

[Emlyn]

It's a clever little bugger and can worm its way in from quiet a few methods. Just web browsing or a normal download could get it on if I'm not mistaken.

[darkblust]

If Malwarebytes doesn't work,you might want to try Spybot:Search and Destroy.It was what worked for me.

[The Bushranger]

Well, MalwareBytes came up clean as a whistle...

I'll download Spybot tomorrow - I had good experience with it on my old (may it rest in peace) WinXP computer.


I can't help but wonder if it snuck in through Adobe Acrobat somehow, since last night I used it (the only out-of-ordinary thing done), and the first thing that happened when it 'activated' earlier was an Acrobat "this file needs a newer version of Reader" message (me: "...wha??ocrap...").

Thanks for the help, everybody. :smallsmile: