tremeex: The pop-up window that ruined my PC!

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The pop-up window that ruined my PC!

Dear CNET members,

Happy Friday! I hope everyone had a safe and great Thanksgiving holiday. I know I'm a few pounds heavier, but I enjoyed the celebration and was fortunate enough to gather with some family members that I haven't seen in awhile. Now, it's full steam ahead for the holidays. And if you haven't checked out the CNET Holiday Tech guide, give it a whirl to get some great gift ideas and product recommendations from our editors.

Now let's tackle Royce's nasty pop-up window that infected his computer.

Well Royce, our members have poured in their support with plenty of incredibly helpful advice. They generated a few posts shy of 200 responses with a mixture of folks who also experienced the deceiving pop-ups that infected your PC, to folks giving advice on preventative measures, to suggestions for how to deal with an infection by this nasty Trojan. I can almost assure you that if you read through this entire discussion, you'll be much more knowledgeable about these pop-ups that can cause havoc to your machine.

One particular bit of advice I must point out that was repeatedly mentioned by our members is to never click on any pop-ups you do not trust or are uncertain about. As member GEO2003 pointed out: keep in mind that hackers program buttons on these pop-ups whether it is the 'Install,' 'Cancel,' or even the 'X' to close the window, they all do the same thing--run the infections program.

So be supercareful of what you click on. You should get a trusted antivirus/spyware program and even a browser that will provide protection against these type of pop-up intrusions.

I've selected a few answers to get you started in the Q&A section, and if you have more information to share, be sure to post it in the discussion. Thanks for your contributions and have a great weekend everyone!

Cheers!
- Lee

Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com

Lee Koo
CNET Community manager

Last week's question

The pop-up window that ruined my PC!

Last summer, a screen popped up on my computer saying that my computer had all sorts of harmful files on it and said that it would scan and remove them. I clicked on "OK" and the software started running and it ruined my computer, blocking my Trend Micro PCillin Internet Security antivirus and preventing any upgrades. I had to get my computer guru to completely wipe out my hard drive and reinstall my applications and what files she could save. She then installed Malwarebytes Anti-Malware program the make sure the bad application was wiped out.

She told me to not shut down if this ever happened again, but to run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and then Trend Micro before shutting down.

On Friday the 13th, a similar thing happened. The bad application said its name was "SWP2009" and offered itself for purchase. I could not delete or minimize it, but was able to shift its screen to where I was able to get to my Malwarebytes Anti-Malware icon. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware responded and started running. I did a complete scan and Malware found six rogue files. It deleted them and rebooted my computer. Everything seemed OK, but I ran Trend Micro to be sure. Trend found 13 items, which it deleted. All this took some 4 hours.

Has anyone else encountered similar rogue software? What else can be done? I thought my anti-malware and antivirus applications would stop this, but they didn't. Apparently it was connected to some Web site I opened. I'm running Windows XP Home.

-- Submitted by: Royce B.

Featured member solutions
for last week's question:

"Antivirus 2009 and its successors... "
-- Submitted by: Acaykath

"Beat those rogue anti-virus pop-ups, BEFORE they do any damage "
-- Submitted by: si

"Some basic safety tips will help "
-- Submitted by: gordios777-websites

"Has anyone else encountered similar rogue software? "
-- Submitted by: Watzman

"Malware masquerade "
-- Submitted by: davismccarn

"Don't believe pop-ups that you don't really know"
-- Submitted by: cdcjeff

Read all member contributions

Thanks to all who contributed!

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More from the security forum

Check out next week's question:

Need software for burning camcorder videos to DVDs for preservation and distribution

With the arrival of my first grandchild, I bought my son and daughter-in-law a Canon HD camcorder. The camcorder is terrific, the bundled software--Pixela--is not. My first priority is to burn downloaded (to a PC running Windows Vista) videos to a DVD for preservation purposes as well as availability to family and friends. Pixela wants me to uninstall any software that has a DVD burning function before Pixela can work. That's a tall order considering how many software packages contain that function. I am not confident that once that's done the Pixela software will work as promised. So, what I'm looking for are alternative software suggestions to meet my goal of burning videos to DVDs for preservation and distribution. Please include title of software, what makes it great (features), the ease of use, any draw backs, and/or anything that you can think of that makes your software recommendation worthwhile. Thank you for your help.

-- Submitted by: Irwin S.

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