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Microsoft cleans fake antivirus tool from 994,061 PCs

arstechnica.com — The Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) is a small program Microsoft pushes out to computers on Patch Tuesday to clean out a list of malware. On this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft added scans for a malware file that masks itself as security software, and it found plenty of copies.

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 25, 2008

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  • inactive, on 11/25/2008, -4/+533Stupid update removed my copy of "Ultimate Antivirus 2008", forcing me to go download it again.
  • krystalo, on 11/24/2008, -10/+234Good job Microsoft.
  • Expl0siv0, on 11/25/2008, -1/+192Dude you really need to upgrade. The other day one of our customers had Ultimate 2009. Looks like you've got some catching up to do.
  • kflott, on 11/24/2008, -4/+139I've had to clean some of those fake antivirus programs off of several users' machines... pain in the neck! Glad to see Microsoft is trying to combat the problem, but I will continue to rely on the several free 3rd party anti-malware tools that I trust... pretty much all the tools in the Anti-Malware toolkit have been indispensable. http://www.lunarsoft.net/downloads/cat_view/39-ant ...
  • masterkenobi, on 11/25/2008, -15/+134dirka dirka dirka Mac fanboy comment dirka dirka!
  • mtbrown, on 11/25/2008, -2/+101Oh that's nothing. I downloaded this little gem called Windows Optimizer 2009... and my computer has never run faster! Thanks 4chan!
  • dhughes, on 11/25/2008, -1/+96 The biggest threat to your system is *you* whether you use a Mac, Win or Linux machine if the owner of it bypasses the security he set up no anti-virus in the world will prevent that.
  • micro23, on 11/25/2008, -2/+802 points. I'm so tired of removing this from peoples computers. The worst part is 1 in 5 people actually PURCHASE the software...

    Thank you Microsoft you just saved me hours of head to hand.
  • hypodan, on 11/25/2008, -1/+78I think you need to also re register your copy, go ahead and send me 50$ and I'll take care of that for you.
  • Ju1c3, on 11/25/2008, -1/+74malwarebytes.org

    takes 10 minutes to clean all of them
  • anonymous1986, on 11/25/2008, -7/+79I'm Idmyers and i'm a ***** waste of comment space
  • Icetype, on 11/25/2008, -0/+72Remember Comet Cursor? Man, that was quality.
  • inactive, on 11/25/2008, -2/+70Get Gator while you're at it.

    It's a great piece of software.
  • deaftly, on 11/25/2008, -32/+95the apple/linux retards really need to stop commenting
  • Blitzenn, on 11/25/2008, -5/+63Good for you! I was soo curious as to what you trusted I could hardly stand it myself. The stress was killing me.
  • psykiv, on 11/25/2008, -0/+55Remember Bonzi Buddy?
  • inactive, on 11/25/2008, -7/+56Mohamed jihad, dirka dirka.
  • inactive, on 11/25/2008, -23/+68Microsoft is probably the best company in the world right now
  • magamiako, on 11/25/2008, -3/+47From an objective viewpiont, at the end of the article they noted how Microsoft is soon going to be entering the "Anti-Virus" business. I know a lot of companies such as Symantec and Mcafee are going to cry anti-trust, but why?

    Norton Antivirus and McAfee antivirus are well known resource hogs on a PC, often times doing more harm than good. They bombard you with protections for everything, and this is why products such as Antivirus 2009 exist. They mirror the way these tools give people the illusion of providing protection.

    Even though there are great alternatives to the above, (AVG, Avast, and NOD32), the fact is that you will find Norton or McAfee on any new PC sooner than you would find the better performing tools.

    It's no surprise that Microsoft is now taking action themselves, and so far it has been good. Their tools aren't the greatest, but they offer a pretty solid level of protection. Futhermore, Microsoft has really pushed security far beyond what it once was. Just compare the philosophy behind everything Microsoft has done since XP Service Pack 2 and the one they had prior to XP.
  • artfuldodga, on 11/25/2008, -2/+45so how do we get those 900,000+ users OFF THE INTERNET
  • Azerael, on 11/25/2008, -8/+47I find them annoying, too.

    Unfortunately, I'm one of them. Can I hang with you guys? I dual boot! Please? I'm drowning in their drool.
  • dechah, on 11/25/2008, -2/+40Just tell them that you have decided to run a Windows OS exclusively on you MacIntel and that will cause them to suffer apoplexy :-)
  • BinaryFragger, on 11/25/2008, -2/+39The operating systems you mentioned support capital letters, you know.
  • inactive, on 11/25/2008, -1/+35I like you. You have balls. I like balls.
  • catsfive, on 11/25/2008, -1/+35WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST MY MOM??
  • fmtoffolo, on 11/25/2008, -6/+40but I bought the full version!! i want my money back now thats gone....
  • DuMbGuM, on 11/25/2008, -4/+37I'm also ldmyers, and i like donkey *****.
  • ElectricC0wb0y, on 11/25/2008, -1/+33I spent the better part of my vacations from college trying to convince my sister that the bonsai buddy and comet cursor were bringing her pentium windows 98 to a craaawwwwl...
  • TheGrOgStEr, on 11/25/2008, -0/+28I didn't trust it at first. Then I saw it in action. Great program, even the free one.
  • LeviTheSmith, on 11/25/2008, -1/+29titteensexgirlwebcamxxxparishilton.avi.rar.zip.bat.exe
    doesn't play for me :(. Then my PC tells me it needs my credit card info for some odd reason.
  • Rockkybox, on 11/25/2008, -6/+32The threat of viruses is IMO enormously overrated, been running without antivirus software for years with no problems, just don't open email attachments that say 'I love you' (face it, no one does), don't download things from obviously untrustworthy websites and use firefox
  • derek20cali, on 11/25/2008, -0/+25@BinaryFragger, I think Linux requires a kernel recompile for capital letter support.
  • Pimpalicious316, on 11/25/2008, -0/+24MY PENIS!
  • ohcoaster, on 11/25/2008, -1/+25ohhh, dirka dirka dirka
  • raptordrew, on 11/25/2008, -4/+27HAHAHA YOUR SO FUNNY
  • rossinio, on 11/25/2008, -1/+24I heard that you can do everything that tool does just by deleting as much as possible in c:\windows\system32 and you dont even need to pay for a program to do it!
  • snurfle, on 11/25/2008, -1/+23994,061... hey! I'm the "1"!!!
  • strictnein, on 11/25/2008, -0/+21You can't get your money back. This is all extorsionware from shady Russian firms. I'd be worried about his credit card number if I was them.
  • asspants, on 11/25/2008, -3/+23I love removing these from people's computer, it makes me money. I'm sorry to hear that you don't.

  • BinaryFragger, on 11/25/2008, -3/+23As a PC, at least I can play games. :-)
  • scarper86, on 11/25/2008, -0/+19"We're talking about automated infections/hijacking from a remote location. That's a lot different."

    Yeah and this isn't "automated infections/hijacking from a remote location" either. People have to choose to do something to install these things. It's not that easy to compromise a Windows machine anymore until you willfully do something stupid. The days of an idling computer getting infected with malware are long gone for an up to date Windows box.
  • Ouze, on 11/25/2008, -0/+19that you surf pro-linux sites, have a beard and glasses, and spank it to anime.
  • graemee, on 11/25/2008, -0/+19While I don't make money removing these, I do like to keep 'score". So far 11,500+ hits with Spybot is my record for one PC.
  • Daxx22, on 11/25/2008, -1/+20Yes
  • sfacets, on 11/25/2008, -0/+18Microsoft! (***** yeah!)
  • Andrwmorph, on 11/25/2008, -1/+18It was almost a shame to uninstall the little guy. Its a good thing the uninstaller didn't work!
  • PleaseJustDie, on 11/25/2008, -0/+17I've had well over 40k on one person's computer.

    Her computer was so bogged down with spyware it took 20 minutes to load into windows and so many processes were trying to access the internet at once that nothing could, as soon as windows loaded about 100 IE windows popped up and all ended up not being able to display whatever they were trying to because they all essentially *****-blocked each other.

    I booted her computer into safe mode and installed spybot off a CD and it cleaned about 37,000 known problems from her system over the span of a few hours, rebooted took about 2 minutes for windows to load, updated spybot, ran it again and cleaned another 3k or so out and rebooted again, her computer rebooted in 35 seconds.

    After that when I go to someone's house to do this I make sure to put all the updates for spybot on the CD as well.
  • illDecree, on 11/25/2008, -2/+19i am SOOOOO glad this is a non-issue now

    i wish i could Digg MS right now
  • tetsuo29, on 11/25/2008, -1/+18I do a fair amount of de-gunking of people's home PCs. I can assure you that the problem of malware infecting PCs running Microsoft Windows is anything but overrated. When I get a call to go and look at somone's PC, its usually because the machine has become slow and unusable to the point where they finally start asking friends for advice. In almost all cases they are not running current antivirus or any other form of malware remover. There are always many many infections. Sometimes the machine can be cleaned, sometimes it cannot and must be nuked & restored. Your cavalier attitude towards viruses and other malware may work for you, but I can guarantee you that it is not working for others.
  • satellytX, on 11/25/2008, -0/+16thank god for people like you
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