Symptoms of Antivirus 2008 and Related Trojans : Antivirus

Best Registry Cleaner

 

The Antivirus 2008 Trojan family is anything but what it seems.  If this is your first time to research this piece of software, what follows may seem a little shocking.  But if you’ve inadvertently downloaded it onto your computer (or even worse, if it has downloaded itself), you really need to read the rest of this article!

Antivirus 2008 is a fraudulent piece of software that masquerades as a security program.  It does this in order to con you out of your money.  It reports fake threats–and even worse, creates real ones–so that you will buy its “registered” version.

Unfortunately, many of the same symptoms may start to appear after you thought you took care of the problem!  Here are some Antivirus 2008 symptoms that show you have been infected, or are still infected, with this malicious spyware program.

1.  Your Screensaver changes. Usually this will be either a blue screen like you see when Windows shuts down due to emergency, or else you’ll see “bugs” crawling all over the screen.

The blue screen is particularly insidious as it can continually scare you into thinking something’s wrong with your computer!  This is the kind of psychological warfare that is suited for actual war and not for the blameless PC or laptop user!

2. Your Start Menu does not list “Programs”, “My Documents”, “My Computer”, “My Recent Documents”, “Search”, “Help”, “Control Panel”, or “Run”.

If that seems like a thorough list, well, that’s because it is!  You probably don’t need to be told why it’s so important that you be able to access these things.  It should help you solve the problem, though, to know that the source is likely Antivirus 2008. (Also watch out for Antivirus 2009. You’d think these crooks would be a bit more creative with their naming scheme, wouldn’t you?)

3.  You start to see pop-ups for XP 2009, XP Antivirus Protection, Spy-Shredder, or other supposed “anti-virus” and “anti-spyware” programs. As you might imagine, these programs aren’t any better than Antivirus 2008.  They’ll do nothing but keep the fraudulent alert cycle going.

These programs will eat up system resources, try to get you to buy more fake programs, and possibly steal your passwords or credit card info.  The tax on your system resources can cause your computer to overhead (especially if you have an infected laptop) and/or cause a system crash!

4.  Your desktop background is now blue with a yellow alert, or else a red hazard alert.  And you can’t change it. This is one of many ways that Antivirus 2008 tries to fool and scare you into buying its “full”, “upgraded”, or “registered” version.  Don’t you love being lied to and scared?

5.  The words “VIRUS ALERT” are now showing in your system tray (i.e. in the lower right-hand corner of your screen). Again, this is another scare tactic.  (Not to mention annoying).  You should be scared, but not of anything this program claims it can fix.

No, you should be scared of Antivirus 2008 itself.  The only way to remove it is to get some legitimate, real antivirus protection and use it right away!

 

 

Carl runs a site devoted to helping you rid your computer from all sorts of spyware and malware at http://www.spyzooka.com/

You can read more posts here:
Symptoms of Antivirus 2008 and Related Trojans