"visicom media anti phishing domain advisor (powered by Panda Security) stopped working" What is this?

I run Windows 7 Pro 64-bit on a maxed-out Sony VPC1290X

All of a sudden about a month ago I started getting this warning.

"visicom media anti phishing domain advisor (powered by Panda Security) stopped working"

I don't even know what it is. Searching the internet comes up with a variety of explanations -- some say it is legitimate. There is a Panda website discussing it.

On the other hand there are other websites that say it is malware or that is used by malware to download onto your computer.

Other sites say to get rid of it but that it is difficult to do so.

I used to use MSSE but after a number of re-direct viruses, I installed Norton Internet Security software.

I've run several of the antivirus programs -- in particular Norton's scan and Malwarebytes Antimalware.(MBAM) Though on occasion run results say they found and fixed problems including some trojans that have downloaded onto my computer, I've not seen any mention of this,

Does anyone know about this Visicom Media anti-phishing domain advisor and whether I should get rid of it? and if so how?

I can't seem to find where it is installed.

 

How do you even get virusses? You must be like my parents clicking all the "download" buttons on some pages.

Anyways, I can tell you this anti phishing tool gets installed by Panda's cloud antivirus. I'd say if you never installed anything related to Panda then try to remove it. I'm not sure if this is bundled with any other application though, Only seen it in Panda.
And for what it is, it's some sort of URL filter that's supposed to keep you away from bad websites if I recall correctly.

~Aeny

EDIT: Try a run with HitmanPro, there's a trial version and it's pretty good.

 

what antivirus are you using now? and is it free or pro.
also make sure you only have one antivirus loaded at a time as they can conflict.

as said if you dont use panda or have never used panda then i would suggest a safemode virus scan.
F8 on startup (or whatever your computer uses) to boot into safe mode and run a full scan.

 

So thanks everyone for your responses and queries.

As the posted answers haven't proved fruitful -- I would still like some help.

Here are responses to the posted questions:

@ MrDJ As I said, I've run several full scans by several different well-known anti-virus programs. Norton's is paid for. MBAM's anti-virus is free -- if you want its other features -- that is what you pay for. But I haven't tried a scan in safemode. would that make a difference?

1. @ Aeny: I NEVER hit download when I go to a website unless I ABSOLUTELY know what I am downloading. E.g., Critical updates to Windows. There are, however, hackers who get onto perfectly "safe" websites and can download trojan software without anyone clicking 'Download." Just clicking on a link one has clicked on many times before on a very well known site can start a trojan download without anyone knowing about it. Even downloads one would presume to be safe get hacked. For example this happened to an Adobe update recently. (Fortunately, I did not get hit with that one - but many people did.) You are in for a big surprise if you think the only way to get a trojan downloaded is the way your parents do. You are as naive as they are.

 

trojans are tricky little buggers and just for example like you mentioned above of clicking on a link you click on many times but this time it had been hacked. clicking it is a round about way of inviting a virus in, so when you do a virus scan it doesnt see it as a threat as you inadvertently invited it in so it wont try to remove it. running in safe mode it will see the trojan as a threat and hopefully remove it.

there are some though that just wont go away and keep multiplying every time you remove part of it. i think the only real way to get rid of these is re installing your os.

 

Justitia,
I'm sure you saw this:

Panda Security Forum - View topic - [CLOSED] Panda blocking website but I don't have Panda installed...

Perhaps you can ask your question on their forum. Frankly, I don't know if your instance is legit, or some form of Malware/Trojan. My suggestion would be to scan your computer using the free Spybot Search and Destroy, from Safer Networking .org:

Spybot - Search & Destroy from Safer-Networking Ltd.

Version 2.0.12 is a pretty comprehensive tool. It also contains a Root kit scan.

Cheers

 

Thanks so much for your feedback Dragnoak. Hadn't used Spybot search and destroy for many years. Ran it (after updating of course) and it found nothing except tracking cookies -- which Spybo hates. I let it clean out all the tracking cookies itdidn;t like as most of them were adware.

In the process, I finally saw the Antiphishing program in the Uninstall list. Don't know why but I had looked before and had not found it.

Anyway, the Anti-phishing program was listed as having been installed a year ago. I never consciously did so -- but there was a period when, for some programs I use, their updates were through CNET. CNET was for a while downloading other software while you were downloading updates you intended to download. That was about a year ago.

I complained to the programs' tech people and they must have gotten on CNET's case because it suddenly stopped doing it. So I don't know if that is when somehow I got Visicom -- and I have no idea why suddenly in the last several weeks it "stopped" working.

I used CC cleaner to remove it (and CC Cleaner also removed a fair bit of debris.)

I didn't do a search in safe mode -- but I will try it sometime.

Anyway, ihe anti-phishing program seems to be gone now -- I will run CC cleaner again in a couple of days.

Thanks everyone!

 

Just as an update. My SONY screen started a while back to quite frequently black out and turn back on with a notice that the video display stopped working and the problem was corrected. I thought the screen was dying prematurely -- and having no time -- wondered whe i was oging to get it checked out.

This happened 3-4 time a week.

Since I removed "visicom media anti phishing domain advisor (powered by Panda Security)" none of that has happened in almost 3 weeks weeks. So I guess the program was malware or at least interfering with my disply and was the probably the problem.

All seems quite fixed now.