Resolved Question

What was the virus?

Here I was, innocently doling out sarcasm when a big warning comes up and announces CRITICAL and medium infections on my hard drive and in some "shared files". The warning suggested running a program to fix it, but Windows came back with a warning the FIX program was infected, so I stopped it.

Fact is I have NO shared files that I know of, and here I am tapping with impunity like nothing happened. Can a bigger geek than I am speculate as to should I be worried or what happened?

Great answers so far, I may close this Q quickly. I do seem to be fine....

They sure succeeded in scaring me! AVG free anti-virus just completed a whole computer scan and showed NO infections. Whew! Others have voted "my pick" the highest score, so I'm going with the flow. I wish everyone could be first as all your answers were first-rate! Thank U so much! Happy Holiday coming up Monday to all who observe it...don't do anything I wouldn't [I'll try ANYTHING once!].

Posted 2 months ago

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Fourandahalfdays

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

It's called scareware. They send you a virus and a suggestion to buy software to fix the virus that they just gave you.

Do not buy their software. This is computer terrorism.

There are other ways to get rid of it without giving money to the people who gave you the virus in the first place.

There is a section in the Geek fourm or geek patrol, something like that. They will tell you how to get rid of it for free.

Posted 2 months ago

Other 7 Answers to What was the virus?

fascade	Posted Sep 5th, 2009 at 12:54AM The popup telling you of the critical infections, etc was malware trying to install itself. Windows caught it. If you have virus software, update it and run a scan. If not, and this is what I do, download "Spybot Search and Destroy", update it and run it. It's free and one of the top virus/malware removers out there. Sounds to me like Windows caught it, but I'd just be sure. Rated: +3Vote for this!
FloatingDebris	Posted Sep 5th, 2009 at 1:10AM the firefox mozilla web browser (like Internet Explorer but better) has a program you add on to it called AdBlock, these kinds of programs keep those popups from terrerizing your computer. Fascade is correct. Rated: +3Vote for this!
Jujalee	Posted Sep 5th, 2009 at 12:38AM the same thing happened to me, I just shut my comp off and restarted it Rated: +2Vote for this!
coloco	Posted Sep 4th, 2009 at 11:41PM It is a spoof attack, did they tell you were to find a program to fix it. If you had ran that, then you would have had problems Rated: +2Vote for this!
Undertone	Posted Sep 5th, 2009 at 12:41AM I ignore them like the "register" Rated: +1Vote for this!
pickynancy1234	Posted Sep 4th, 2009 at 11:20PM I don't know, buy a Mac, you won't have to worry about things like that. Rated: +1Vote for this!
Cosreal	Posted Sep 4th, 2009 at 11:21PM =/ hard to say.. windows like that pops up my comp. all the time and my comp is fine when I'm quick to quit and fix. I think it's some bs from the internet.. at least with my comp. but I could be so wrong.. I'd double check just to be on the safe side. Rated: +1Vote for this!

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