How to get rid of Antivirus 2010

If you get a pop up that says you have been infected with a bunch of viruses from an anti-virus program that you did not install (such as Antivirus 2010 – which doesn’t really exist), you are being attacked by a variant of the SmitFraud virus. You should NEVER let it scan your computer or do anything to it. My clients that have immediately shut off their computers using the power button have been able to avoid getting an irreparable infection. If you get malicious pop-ups when you reboot your computer, then you should call a computer professional to remove it, if you don’t get pop-ups then you should update your anti-malware program and perform a complete deep scan of your computer before continuing to use it.

Agile Gadgets creates mobile software programs for smallish businesses. Orion Technology Solutions is the technology department for small businesses in the far north Dallas Metro area. They can be reached at 972.369.8540.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is an attempt via email, Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In, to get you to give personal information to a criminal 3rd party. The basic scam is to send you an email that says you need to log into your bank account and verify a problem of some sort, the email provides a link to the site where you need to log in – EXCEPT it goes to a fraudulent site that records your username and password to be used later to steal money from you. Most banks and sites like Ebay and Paypal no longer send emails with links. If you get a mail like this -- and you will -- either call your financial institution directly or close the email and open a new browser window and type in the address of the site – DO NOT CLICK on the email. If you did click on the email, be sure and update your anti-virus and do a full system scan.

Agile Gadgets creates mobile software programs for smallish businesses. Orion Technology Solutions is the technology department for small businesses in the far north Dallas Metro area. They can be reached at 972.369.8540.

Free Antivirus – Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft has released a free anti-malware program that fights viruses, spyware, trojans and root-kits. It is a free download for designed for end users that aren’t on domain based networks. It does not use as many resources as some of the other name-brand virus protection systems and does not include a firewall (but all versions of Windows from XP on do have a built in firewall – so one is not needed.) Before you install any anti-virus including Microsoft Security Essentials, you should completely uninstall any other anti-virus programs and do a restart. You may download it for free at: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Agile Gadgets creates mobile software programs for smallish businesses. Orion Technology Solutions is the technology department for small businesses in the far north Dallas Metro area. They can be reached at 972.369.8540.