My scareware night and how McAfee lost a customer
Posted by Larry Dignan for ZDNet
I had an ugly run-in with scareware last night, but I’m not sure what left me more annoyed: The dreaded Antivirus Pro 2009 scareware or McAfee, my anti-virus software provider.
First, my PC was overtaken by Antivirus Pro 2009, which is a rogue anti-spyware application. In a nutshell, Antivirus Pro starts automatically when you log on to your computer, creates fake malware and then holds the PC hostage. In addition it hi-jacks Internet Explorer and pelts you with porn sites (sprinkled in with a little Viagra for good measure). Simply put, Antivirus Pro 2009 tries to scare you into registering the software.
It’s not entirely clear how Antivirus Pro got into my Windows XP home PC. I was at work at the time, but the scareware wasn’t flagged by McAfee’s software and the signatures were up to date. Perhaps it was user error, but once Antivirus Pro is installed you’re screwed. Running task manager and add/remove was a disaster.[...]
After a few hours of trying a little of everything (including failed installations of Kaspersky’s anti-virus software and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware) I decided I needed some help. For some odd reason, I figured I’d pay McAfee support almost $90 to go into my PC and fix things. I figured I was running out of time (I was falling asleep at the keyboard) and I’d do anything—except pay the rat bastards behind Antivirus Pro 2009.
More on his experience in http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=27234