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Add ThisIt’s a scenario that Josh Nelson has seen one too many times.
A computer user goes online, sees a popup warning for a virus and clicks the link to fix it. And then the computer just stops working.
The virus itself comes from the popup that looks like an antivirus software screen. Clicking “fix it” or even clicking inside the box to ignore it will set up the virus on the computer.
“A lot of people are getting hit from this particular threat,” said Nelson, who owns My Computer Doctor in Marysville. “In the past two weeks, I’d guesstimate close to a third of our work has been dealing with this problem. I’m still a small business, and I only deal with probably 10 to 15 clients a week, but last week alone, I fixed seven to eight computers that had that threat.”
Nelson has seen both residential and commercial clients with infected computers. The virus can pop up from a number of different Web sites, including Facebook, according to Nelson.
This type of virus has been infecting computers for months, but recently it had evolved into a strain that is doing a lot more damage to computers than before.
“I actually saw it first start to be an issue about three months ago,” Nelson said. “There are many different strains of this virus out there. It asks for credit card information to fix the virus, and then they retrieve the credit card number and bill their account.
“It costs a lot of people money. But in the past couple of weeks, people are renaming the virus to Ransomware because it completely hijacks the system to the point where you can’t do anything. You can’t install applications and you can’t remove the virus. It shuts down your local antivirus software.”
This new strain also asks for credit card information, and once that is entered, the computer will cease to work properly. If a user clicks inside the popup to disregard the warning, no credit card information is taken, but the computer will still be infected.
Once the computer is infected, Nelson said, he can only opt to completely reinstall the computer. He advises that people can try to back up the files on their computers, but that may be difficult if the strain of virus does not allow a user to do that.
The solution
Although the situation can be pretty dire once a computer is infected, there are ways to avoid letting the virus hijack the computer.
Getting the popup does not automatically mean you have the Ransomware virus already. If the popup comes up, the only way to close out of the window and not receive the virus is to click the “x” at the top right-hand corner.
There are ways to determine whether this is a virus as opposed to a real warning from the antivirus software on your computer.
“It looks very similar to what your antivirus would do if you were infected,” Nelson said. “The real method to prevent it is to really know what antivirus you have. Make sure your antivirus software logo is in the popup. The virus looks very similar, but there is no brand logo.”
One way that a computer owner can avoid even getting the popup and confusing it with regular antivirus software is to download shareware, or free software that gets rid of specific types of spyware -- files that may be attracting the Ransomware virus to the computer.
“Sometimes you have to use a combination of these programs to get rid of the virus,” Nelson said. “Most regular antivirus software like Norton and McAfee do not pick (spyware) up. The anti-spyware programs pick these things up and get rid of them. I think what is happening is that people are getting these initial spyware files, which allow for popups to pop up. They try to trigger a secondary infection.”
Anti-spyware programs, such as AVG, Spybot and CCleaner, are available for free download at Nelson’s Web site at www.MyComputerDoctor.net.
Nelson’s business services residents and businesses from Chambersburg to Lancaster and can make home visits for virus removal, repairs and upgrades.
