Be very careful with this, I had a horrible experience.
By kris182_2000
@kris182_2000 (5475)
Canada
March 5, 2011 8:54pm CST
For just over 6 hours I fretted with a virus on my laptop that wasn't there when I went to take a shower at 3pm.
When I returned at 3:30pm, my roommate had been on my laptop checking his email when the warnings started to pop up.
I didn't know what this one was, I'd never had to deal with it before and it was pretty scary.
The last time I had a virus on my system, I had to reformat it and reinstall my operating system, and it was looking like I was about to go the same route this time.
I was getting warnings from a virus called System Tool 2011. It self installed a file on my laptop that would have been extremely hard to find.
I first ran a registry cleanup, but it didn't help. So I moved on and did a spyware scan, which only found tracking cookies.
I didn't have internet access, the warnings kept telling me that both Firefox and Internet Explorer weren't safe to use anymore.
So I did a safe mode virus scan. It found 2 trojans, but that didn't get rid of the virus that was plaguing me.
So then I ran an Advanced System Care scan, it found and fixed several problems, but still didn't get at the virus.
By this time, I'd had brief internet access, the system care scan helped with that, but once I tried to close a Firefox window, Firefox crashed completely and I couldn't access it again.
I moved some items off my laptop onto external sources, thinking I was going to have to do a full reformat, desperately wondering how I was going to manage that without a cd to install from.
I got the great idea to try a system restore, a last resort before reinstalling my operating system.
This resolved the issue, no warning messages have come back up, and that was almost an hour ago.
Now I know what to do in case this happens again. Thankfully I asked for information about this virus on Facebook and got a reply immediately, which took my fears about this virus away.
If you ever get this virus, you wont be able to try to search for the file as it is unknown, but do a system restore and you'll be able to fix it. Save yourself the stress that I just went through.
4 people like this
10 responses
@GardenGerty (169477)
• United States
6 Mar 11
System restore was not a permanent fix the three times I have run into this. I think it rode in on something my dad forwarded. My son helped me, I cannot remember what he did, and it was not on my laptop, but on my Desk Top. He actually installed and emergency program for me to get into, so that I could then run Malware Bytes. I will check it later when I go upstairs and see what else we did. It was not long after that that I bought AVG, not the free version, and I have not had it happen since.
1 person likes this
@kris182_2000 (5475)
• Canada
6 Mar 11
I have the paid version of Avast, I think AVG would clash with it if I had it.
I do think this one rode in on an email he was in, as soon as he hit reply to the message, that's when the trouble started.
So I guess I was right and it was his fault, even though it was unintentional.
2 people like this
@GardenGerty (169477)
• United States
6 Mar 11
You are right, you do not want two clashing security programs. You can run MalWare Bytes without a clash though. Yeah, no one intends to get this thing, but my dad forwards me all sorts of crap. It also ran through another website I am on, and crashed quite a few computers.
1 person likes this
@kris182_2000 (5475)
• Canada
6 Mar 11
Yikes that is bad.
A friend of mine recommended Spybot Search and Destroy so I'm using that now. Hoping it gets this out of my system for good.
1 person likes this
@daeckardt (6237)
• United States
6 Mar 11
That sounds really scary. I don't know that I would have thought of any of that. I'm glad you told us about this virus and the solution to it. I hope that I never have to go through that because it would be a royal pain. I would probably wind up calling someone to do the fix because I am not all that tech savvy.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (169477)
• United States
6 Mar 11
I am fortunate that my techie lives at my house right now. The first time this happened he had to go to the laptop and download MalWare Bytes to a USB drive and then catch a gap in the start up of the Security Tool or whatever it called itself, and run MalWare Bytes that way.
1 person likes this
@kris182_2000 (5475)
• Canada
6 Mar 11
When in doubt, try the system restore. I really didn't think it would work, and was surprised that it did.
2 people like this
@Thoroughrob (11742)
• United States
6 Mar 11
I just did the same with my friends computer yesterday. I was just about to give up and tried the system restore and it worked. I hope it keeps working. It was the same System tool thing. I am glad it fixed both of them.
1 person likes this
@kris182_2000 (5475)
• Canada
6 Mar 11
Well, I hope that many people read this and heed the warning, it's not an enjoyable thing to go through.
1 person likes this
@Youreyes4Today (2356)
• United States
7 Mar 11
There is also a virus happening that is saying you have breached a website security whatever... then it starts a supposed scan. I do not let it finish, I close it and empty my cookies, temp and history files.
If you allow the scan to finish and you do as it instructs you, you are actually installing the virus.
I use Ccleaner(free file cleaner n more) and run it almost everyday. Also Malewarebyts is a good one to use.
I feel that the anti-virus's we run are a target for the hackers to use to get trojans, virus's and such on our computers.
I hope your system restore is all you needed to do to fix this. Make sure you run your cleaning scans for awhile to catch anything just in case.
@jugsjugs (12967)
•
6 Mar 11
We had a simular problem and we tried everything, we got rid of it in the end using norton service people as we had paid for their anti virus.It came back again a month or so laater and we could not even go to another date to get it sorted that way, so we got in touch with norton again who had to sort it again properly.Makes you think really where the problem came from to get on the pc and what sites are having virus problems dont it.
1 person likes this
@rosegardens (3032)
• United States
6 Mar 11
Safe mode may also work with something like this. I love superantispyware, it does find most things, and AVG is able to block most of the buggies that come my way.
Glad you got your computer up and running! That is scary when there is an unwelcome proggy lurking about on your pc.
1 person likes this
@danishcanadian (28954)
• Canada
6 Mar 11
I got a virus a couple of days after I got this computer back in November, and it took my systems-administrator, tech-geek husband, and the computer guy who sold it to us, the entire weekend to get the dang thing fixed.
@ReViewMeMedia (3786)
• United States
6 Mar 11
I had a virus problem once, but I fixed it with some anti-virus that I had to pay for but I haven't had any virus problems again.
@send2noel (140)
• Saudi Arabia
6 Mar 11
i usually run my computer through anti virus to make sure that my computer is safe. i learned from my previous experience, i downloaded a file from unknown source and before i knew it, my computer goes poooooofffff!
