My wife was in panic. Her computer showed all signs of the severe illness, and refused to do anything she wanted. On my question, where she got the infection, she refused to admit that she did something wrong, as accepting unwelcome dangerous attachment or clicking “bad” links. When her computer became non-operational, she accessed the same link from my computer, and my PC started to show the same signs of disease. Then, she stopped and waited for me.
After brief investigation, it has confirmed that she caught a nasty Trojan Antivir Solution Pro. For some unknown reason, my computer did not get infected, even the suspected site has been accessed from it as well. I checked the Internet wisdom on how to get rid of the intruder, and the most detailed and reliable solution was presented by
Bleeping Computer experts.
What this infection does?
Antivir Solution Pro is a rogue anti-spyware program from the same family as Antivirus Soft and AV Security Suite. This family of rogues is installed through the use of malware and exploit kits that download and install Antivir Solution Pro onto your computer without your permission. When this program is installed it will be configured to start automatically when Windows starts, and once started, will perform a scan of your computer and state that it has found numerous infections. It will not, though, tell you the files that are supposedly infected and will also state that you cannot remove anything until you first purchase the program. This is a complete scam, as the program is scripted to display infections every time it is run. That means if you reinstalled Windows and ran Antivir Solution Pro it would still say that you are infected. It does this to scare you into thinking that your computer has a security problem so that you will then purchase the program. When you purchase the program, though, all you do is waste your money as the program has no useful function for your computer.
Antivir Solution Pro is known to be installed through exploit kits on hacked web sites. Exploit kits are scripts that are added to hacked legitimate web sites that attempt to install malware onto a visitors computer through the use of known vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and installed applications. Due to this, and to avoid being infected again after your computer is cleaned, it is important that you make sure that your Windows installation is completely up-to-date with all the latest Microsoft security patches. It is also important to make sure that all your programs, which include Sun Java, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Flash, are updated to their latest versions.
Later, the company’s employees, which website has been suspected as a problem source, confirmed that there are several other complaints on the website access danger.
When Antivir Solution Pro is running it will state that most programs are infected when you attempt to run them. The text of this fake infection alert is:
Application cannot be executed. The file notepad.exe is infected. Do you want to active your antivirus software now?
It does this for two reasons. The first is to make you think that it is legitimate, and clean, but the other programs are infected so that you will then purchase the rogue. The second reason is to block you from running any legitimate security programs that may help you remove this infection.
While Antivir Solution Pro is running it will also show you fake security alerts that attempt to further scare you into thinking you have a infection on your computer. These alerts will state that active malware has been detected or that your computer is under attack. The text of these alerts is:
Windows Security Alert
Windows reports that computer is infected. Antivirus software helps to protect your computer against viruses and other security threats. Click here for the scan your computer. Your system might be at risk now.
Antivirus Software Alert
Infiltration Alert
Your computer is being attacked by an internet virus. It could be a password-stealing attack, a trojan - dropper or similar.
Just like the other false infections alerts, these warnings are all fake and should be ignored. Last, but not least, Antivir Solution Pro will also configure your computer to use a proxy server at 127.0.0.1:5643, which is actually the Antivir Solution Pro program itself. This makes it that when you browse the web using Internet Explorer, the rogue will intercept all your web browser requests and instead display a page that shows a security warning about the site you are visiting. This warning states:
Internet Explorer warning - visiting this site may harm your computer!
Most likely causes:
· The website contains exploits that can launch a malicious code on your computer
· Suspicious network activity
· There might be an active spyware running on your computer
These warnings should be ignored as they are false. If you use a browser other than Internet Explorer you will not see the warnings at all and can browse the Internet like normal.
Without a doubt, Antivir Solution Pro was created solely to trick you into purchasing the program by convincing you that your computer has a security problem. Now that you know what this program does, it goes without saying that you should not purchase this program for any reason. If you already have purchased it, then we suggest you contact your credit card company and dispute the charges. To remove Antivir Solution Pro and any related malware, please follow the steps in the removal guide below.
Automated Removal Instructions for Antivir Solution Pro using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
- Print out these instructions as we may need to close every window that is open later in the fix.
- It is possible that the infection you are trying to remove will not allow you to download files on the infected computer. If you run into this problem when following the steps in this guide you will need to download the files requested in this guide on another computer and then transfer them to the infected computer. You can transfer the files via a CD/DVD, external drive, or USB flash drive.
- Reboot your computer into Safe Mode with Networking using the instructions for your version of Windows found in the following tutorial:
When following the steps in the above tutorial, select Safe Mode with Networking rather than just Safe Mode. When the computer reboots into Safe Mode with Networking make sure you login with the username you normally use. When you are at your Windows desktop, please continue with the rest of the steps.
- This infection changes your Windows settings to use a proxy server that will not allow you to browse any pages on the Internet with Internet Explorer or update security software. Regardless of the web browser you use, for these instructions we will first need to fix this problem so that we can download the utilities we need to remove this infection.
Please start Internet Explorer, and when the program is open, click on the Tools menu and then select Internet Options as shown in the image below.
- You should now be in the Internet Options screen as shown in the image below.
Now click on the Connections tab as designated by the blue arrow above.
- You will now be at the Connections tab as shown by the image below.
Now click on the Lan Settings button as designated by the blue arrow above.
7.
You will now be at the Local Area Network (LAN) settings screen as shown by the image below.
Under the Proxy Server section, please uncheck the checkbox labeled
Use a proxy server for your LAN. Then press the
OK button to close this screen. Then press the
OK button to close the Internet Options screen. Now that you have disabled the proxy server you will be able to browse the web again with Internet Explorer.
- Now we must end the processes that belong to Antivir Solution Pro so that it does not interfere with the cleaning procedure. To do this, download the following file to your desktop.
rkill.com Download Link
If you are unable to connect to the site to download rkill, please go back and do steps 3-6 again and make sure the infection has not reenabled the proxy settings. You may have to do this quite a few times before you can get the rkill.com file downloaded. If you still cannot download the rkill.com program on the infected computer, you should download it to a clean computer and copy it to the infected one via a USB flash drive or CDROM.
Unfortunately, in my case, after following up the procedure, I was still unable to connect to Internet. Having another computer around, I could follow this step just by downloading the required file and transferring it to the affected PC.
- Once it is placed on the infected computer, double-click on the rkill.com in order to automatically attempt to stop any processes associated with Antivir Solution Pro and other Rogue programs. Please be patient while the program looks for various malware programs and ends them. When it has finished, the black window will automatically close and you can continue with the next step. If you get a message that rkill is an infection, do not be concerned. This message is just a fake warning given by Antivir Solution Pro when it terminates programs that may potentially remove it. If you run into these infections warnings that close Rkill, a trick is to leave the warning on the screen and then run Rkill again. By not closing the warning, this typically will allow you to bypass the malware trying to protect itself so that rkill can terminate Antivir Solution Pro . So, please try running Rkill until the malware is no longer running. You will then be able to proceed with the rest of the guide.
Do not reboot your computer after running rkill as the malware programs will start again.
- Now you should download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, or MBAM, from the following location and save it to your desktop: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
Note that there is no need to purchase the full software license, as the freeware will work fine for the matter of this procedure. Since Internet connection was still disabled, I had to use another computer as well to get the file.
- Once downloaded, close all programs and Windows on your computer, including this one.
- Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe. This will start the installation of MBAM onto your computer.
- When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and when the program has finished installing, make sure you leave both the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware checked. Then click on the Finish button. If MalwareBytes' prompts you to reboot, please do not do so.
- MBAM will now automatically start and you will see a message stating that you should update the program before performing a scan. As MBAM will automatically update itself after the install, you can press the OK button to close that box and you will now be at the main program as shown below.
- On the Scanner tab, make sure the the Perform full scan option is selected and then click on the Scan button to start scanning your computer for Antivir Solution Pro related files.
- MBAM will now start scanning your computer for malware. This process can take quite a while, so we suggest you go and do something else and periodically check on the status of the scan. When MBAM is scanning it will look like the image below.
- When the scan is finished a message box will appear as shown in the image below.
You should click on the OK button to close the message box and continue with the Antivir Solution Pro removal process.
- You will now be back at the main Scanner screen. At this point you should click on the Show Results button.
- You should now click on the Remove Selected button to remove all the listed malware. MBAM will now delete all of the files and registry keys and add them to the programs quarantine. When removing the files, MBAM may require a reboot in order to remove some of them. If it displays a message stating that it needs to reboot, please allow it to do so. Once your computer has rebooted, and you are logged in, please continue with the rest of the steps.
- When MBAM has finished removing the malware, it will open the scan log and display it in Notepad. Review the log as desired, and then close the Notepad window.
- You can now exit the MBAM program.
Your computer should now be free of the Antivir Solution Pro program.
In my case, the Trojan has been removed completely. I run several other anti-Trojan problems to confirm that there are no traces of the intruder and verified that the computer is clean.
Unfortunately, the software removal was not the end of the story, since the malware program somehow affected the Operating System, and caused failure to boot-up, showing the winlogon corruption error message. The Operating System repair is out of spec of this post, but be prepared to get this surprise at the end of the clean-up process as well. In brief, after several attempts to repair the error, I had to boot-up the computer from the Windows boot-up disk and repair the installation at the affected partition. Now, it works properly again.
The overall procedure took me three evenings, and overall about 12 hours.
