XP Antispyware 2010

Any free or paid anti-virus or spy-ware programs that would catch this virus before it infects a system. I do understand that some can get rid of it but what scanners have the ability to prevent it from even running its course on systems?
Evidence would be a plus

Just seem like this virus suddenly appears on machines regardless of running anti-virus shields?

 

I am starting to get tired of repeating the same old advice over and over again, but here it is: All you have to do is run your system in a sane configuration, meaning you never log in as an Administrator unless you have to (meaning, for software installation and some system maintenance tasks; in particular, you never, ever, idly browse the web while logged in with administrative privileges), and you always have UAC enabled. With the above two measures in place deleting the malware is a simple exercise. It is also possible to harden your system against infections of this type, but that requires a bit of slightly advanced knowledge. There is no need for any "scanner" or any other anti-this-or-that stuff.

 

Going online without an antivirus protection these days is not recommended.

Pirx does have a good suggestion on not running as an Administrator all the time.
I don't have that luxury ... but then again, I haven't experienced problems with viruses on my laptop for such a long time to begin with, it's a non-issue.

As for anti-virus programs ... well, using ONE of the following 3 should be enough:
Avira, Avast 5 and Microsoft Security Essentials.

All are free, light and have a high detection rate.

But most of the infections can be easily avoided by simply not clicking on the ads online.
Another way to avoid them is that you can also use an ad-blocker like the one in Firefox which completely blocks the ads.

I use Chromium and it's ad-block equivalent (for the most part) which keeps them at bay, and despite the fact I go to some shady sites, I don't experience issues.

I use MSE for a/v protection, and keep Malwarebytes as an on-demand scanner just in case.
Scanning only once every 6 months or so (depends) and still haven't experienced problems.

 

Lighten up man, I don't even have the virus, I just noticed that its a common infection even with scanners running. I get the whole admin thing but that didn't answer my question. I want to know if any software scanner free or bought is capable of stopping this virus before it install itself on the machine.

 

A lot of antiviruses scan incoming downloads from the web (this includes all of the 3 aforementioned ones that are free).
If the definition file for that particular virus exists in the antivirus program, then it will detect it and prevent it from ever installing, or simply remove it if it detects it on the system.

On the other hand, you are talking about Rogue a/v programs.
None of the programs (paid or otherwise) have had too much luck in preventing them from installing (although they do sometimes succeed).

But, as I said, infection from most such nasties can be easily prevented by simply blocking the Internet ads through your web browser (seeing how this is their main method of delivery).

If the infection is apparent on your system, you have to look up through alternative measures to remove it because of their aggressive way of operating while on the system.

Trying to for example use System Restore ... and/or looking up online for descriptions that tell you how to remove it by deleting a registry key or two, then a file or two.

It can be a process, but not an overly troublesome one if you do end up infected with it.

 

Thanks for the response. Seems like plenty of people have experienced trouble with this virus regardless of protections running in background. Very curious why there hasn't been any kind of universal update from popular anti-virus and spy-ware scanners by now to prevent it. I guess this one is sneaky with the way its installs itself.

 

I haven't experienced this particular problem on my own computers, but I've seen it on others and took measures to remove it.

As for why a/v's never released an update ... well, the rogue a/v's keep changing on a daily basis, so it's difficult to release definitions in a timely manner.

Like I said, most of these problems are easily avoided by blocking internet ads.

 

UAC? pretty sure xp doesnt have UAC. does it?

 

This has nothing to do with XP. The malware in question infects Vista and Win7 just as well. It just happens to call itself "XP Antispyware 2010".

 

I can say that I deal with multiple computers each week infected with this malware, and 100% of it could be prevented with some safe browsing methods.

There is a reason why some people go years with no anti-virus and never get an infection. It starts with never playing farmville or any other facebook or myspace game, also any random apps, addons, plugins, toolbars, tune up propgrams, etc again.

To sum it up, the good ole "too good to be true" rule applies.

 

I don't think this mantra is suitable.
Linux is free, true and good.
The root of the problem stem from human greed/curiousity.
Users like to think "Oh Free software! Download and install..."
If you know what you need and it is enough, you wouldn't be click on shady software such as XP AntiSpyware 2010.
There would be no issues if people will just think before doing anything.

 

To be fair from my experience of seeing this on other PCs, xp spyware 2010 seem to installed itself somehow. Once the alerts pop up, I believe the damage is already done to the registry. I wonder if surfing in standard account mode instead of admin would be a good prevention method

 

It doesn't prevent it entirely, but it will entirely prevent any system-wide modifications, making it easy to remove the crap. What is a little bit tricky to deal with is that the malware defines a filetype association for .exe files, so that every start of an executable actually starts the malware first. That association needs to be removed first (which can be done while logged in as the affected user), and after that the malware code itself can be removed from the users AppData folder.