Fake 'Windows Security has detected critical virus' messages?

[SlugLobber]

Having not long ago updated to Windows Ultimate and having had problems with AVG on Windows 7 previous to that, I hadn't yet decided on what anti-virus software to get, or even if the stick with Windows Defender.

Anyway, was just looking for an oat cookie recipe when a message comes up to say that my computer was infected, complete with Windows security logos and windows boxes. There was a button to 'fix/remove' viruses, some of which were labelled critical, which I did click, but then a message came up to say that the publisher could not be verified and it was an exe file!

Huge alarm bells, so I cancelled that and checked the virus detail windw carefully. The outer border was a bit blurred, like when you save an image as a jpeg, which made me suspicious. The other thing is that my computer was fine yesterday, yet suddenly had nigh on 50 virus detections in this one message, in different parts of the hard drive.

I've now activated the Sophos software (comes free from University) and scanned the machine, which detected nothing.

Prior to that, I opened Windows Security myself and the only issues it had was that it couldn't detect anti-viral software and no back up was detected (I save all my files on a Skydrive or Uni server).

Am I right to be skeptical? Is there another way of thoroughly checking my machine?

[BarleySugar]

This sounds like my daughter had a while ago, it was a fake, and had installed itself onto her machine, she couldn't do anything without it popping up, it prevented her anti-virus software from running, and everything else. It took me quite a while to fix it, searching out the files that had been installed, and deleting them manually. I searched the internet to find out the likely names of the files, and where they would be found. From what you say I would think you cancelled at the right time as it doesn't sound as if you have any problems in running your machine now.

I've always used avg, even on windows 7, without problems, but my daughter had turned hers off to install some software, and forgotten to turn it on when she reconnected to the Internet.

If you have Sophos from uni installed I would think this should detect any problems you might have, if I remember rightly, my son was only allowed to use this, his university would not allow any other detection software on machines that could access the university network as a safeguard against viruses. He'd always used avg at home and was a bit peeved at having to uninstall it from his laptop. It might be a good idea to check with your network admin people as to what they would advise.

[SlugLobber]

The network people do advise Sophos and have an agreement for home use, too. It seems these fake warnings are unavoidable, as they are triggered from websites that you browse to, through adverts they place on that website. Quite a big problem from the research I've done. Anyway, I've run a Defender Scan, two Sophos scans and a Malware detection tool run (from Microsoft which gets updated every 10 days).

So, look out for these, people! Apparently the thing to do is Ctrl-Alt-Del to close the warning window through task manager. DO NOT DO WHAT I DID! i.e. don't use the'X' close icon. This can in some instances trigger the downloading of malware. I have an option active that asks if I want to allow something to make changes to my machine (does it for EVERYTHING, even things like Adobe updates). This wasn't triggered and no downloading processes seemed to occur, so hopefully all is well. Will run the malware tool as a safeguard, as this detects Spyware, as Defender, should do, but am now paranoid!!