Antivirus 2012 and other fake protection
Perhaps the most prevalent and dangerous of these fake anti-virus programs is Antivirus 2012. As with all fake anti-virus programs, Antivirus 2012 will first manifest itself as a bogus warning or scanning window. While the errors and infections Antivirus 2012 claims to find are illegitimate, the threat to your computer is real.
Once the scanner appears [as seen below] the virus has taken hold in your system and will begin to cause issues. Depending on your operating system and security software, the Antivirus 2012 infection may behave differently. Some reports of this infection include being unable to open or run any other programs, reduced performance, files and folders disappearing from the desktop or the ‘My Documents’ folder, as well as being unable to connect to the internet.
Here we can see a Windows XP based machine with the fake Antivirus 2012 scare-ware installed.
Below we see the same virus on a Windows 7 based PC. You may notice that the virus has intelligently identified the operating system, and has altered its own name to impart legitimacy.
The most common behavior of the Antivirus 2012 infection is the frequent prompts for personal information and credit card information. The program claims that it’s necessary to purchase a license for Antivirus 2012 so that it’s able to remove the bogus threats and return your computer to a usable state. This is patently false.
At this point, only a professional technician will be able to remove the threat posed by Antivirus 2012 and provide a security analysis to prevent future infections. We cannot stress enough how important it is that you NEVER provide credit card details to any program you aren’t 100% familiar with.
Need help removing a fake antivirus?
In most cases we can remove the virus remotely so you don’t have to leave your home! If you currently have a virus infected computer, or just a slow computer and want to speed it up, check out our services tab for pricing, or virus removal tab for more information on our virus removal process. Call us today! (616) 777-7075
