Don’t be fooled by this “virus scan”

A client of mine called and said, “I got a message on my screen telling me that my computer is infected. It offered me a virus remover so I bought it. It seemed to fix it at first, but now I’m getting the pop-ups again. Help!”

I checked his computer and found that he had paid for a fake anti-virus! He was scammed and his credit card number was now in the hands of criminals!

Beware of fake anti-virus programs that show legitimate looking messages on your screen telling you that you’re infected. The message is actually being generated by a virus and it is intent on taking your money.

The following images are what some of the messages look like:

As you can see these messages look very convincing. They are transmitted by email or from infected websites. The best way to recognize them as fake is to take note of the anti-virus you have installed on your computer and compare names. For example, if you have McAfee installed but the message on your screen says it’s “Antivirus 2010″ then you know it’s fake.

When you see this type of message don’t click any button other than the red X in the top right corner. If the message returns again and again then that means the infection got into your system and your computer needs to be cleaned. Call us and we’ll take care of the problem.