It’s been an interesting week with no less than three calls about the dreaded “Internet Security 2010” virus. This seems to be a new strain of something that was around early in 2009 (maybe they write them over the Christmas break when you and I are have our turkey and pies !).
Symptoms
Internet Security 2010 will try to trick you into believing that your computer has serious security problems so that you buy the program. The Internet Security 2010 virus will start and perform a fake scan of your computer. The scan report will list a number of infections and when you try to remove them, you’ll “conveniently” find out that you need to buy Internet Security first. Do not buy Internet Security 2010.
If it got on your computer it will look something the image below.
Damage Done
The good news (if you can call it that) is that the virus does not actually seem to damage your data so once removed your computer will function as normal.
How to remove
Whilst we would never pretend that you can’t remove this virus yourself, it is worth stating that it is not a job for someone who is uncomfortable with editing the Windows Registry and generally dealing with low level utility programs. For that reason we do suggest that you get an expert to remove it for you.