Yet Another Rogue Program

Yesterday I spent most of the day fighting a rogue program that had installed itself on a customer's machine.  Lately I have spent lots of hours and days doing the same thing for other customers. This program carried the name SPYWARE GUARD 2008. One of its many windows looked like this:

This is not at all unlike many of the other rogue programs several of you have been inflicted with. The appearance is similar. The name is different. (See my post of December 11.)

The come-on is to make you believe that your computer is infected with spyware (in this case) or viruses, and "won't you please run our free scan?". Folks, DON'T DO IT! At this point it may already be too late. I really don't know because I have never been there when one of you got infected.

What I do know is that these things are very vicious and very difficult to remove. Fortunately no one of my customers has lost any data (MY DOCUMENTS) yet. I say 'yet' because who knows what they'll do next. They have the ability to simply erase all of your data but so far they seem to be satisfied messing up your system files and trying to shake you down for $40 or so and, even if you pay, you are left with the mess they have created.

Those of you who have been hit know what I am talking about. Those of you who have not been hit, exercise caution!

As I have urged in earlier posts, keep your anti-virus program current, install and run Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and SuerAntiSpyware at least once a week to stay on top of it.

Also, you should have a firewall, Windows Defender, and the aforementioned HOSTS file installed.

Download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware here

Download SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition here

See my November 25 post for additional information.