Ask The Geek

Beware the wolves in geek clothing

By Kevin McDonald

An increasing number of viruses and other types of malware pose as friendly geek Samaritans, selflessly willing to rid your PC of woes that you never knew it had.

Unfortunately, these often-convincing programs are designed to fool you, infect your PC and steal your money.

If you've used a computer on the Internet recently, you may have come across some of these fake geek "friends."

Perhaps you were surfing innocently away when a box popped up on your screen announcing that you were infected with a virus. Oh no!

It might have told you that your computer was overrun with spyware, or that your "registry" was damaged or needed to be cleaned.

It sounded horrible, but the message box also assured you that it can perform a "free" scan of your computer to fix the problem. What should you do in this situation?

The first thing you should do is look closely at the message, but avoid clicking anywhere on it. Where is the message coming from?

The answer to that question may be your first clue that something is amiss.

You should never get a legitimate message from a program that is not installed on your computer.

You should not get a warning about a virus from an anti-virus program you have never installed.

You shouldn't be seeing messages about spyware, malware or registry problems unless you (or someone you trust) installed the piece of software that is telling you there is a problem.

Here's an example. Let's say you use "AVG Anti-Virus" (my personal favorite). One day while you're catching up on the news online, a message pops up saying that you are infected with a virus. If that message is not coming from "AVG Anti-Virus" — and you should be able to tell — then you're likely being targeted by a scam.

The message will usually prompt you to click a button to perform a "free scan" of your computer.

If you do, the "fake software" will simulate a scan of your computer and report that you are indeed infected (no big shock there).

It will then ask you to purchase their software in order to remove the infection.

Unfortunately, by running this "free scan," you might have just installed a virus that is difficult to remove, even though you were never infected to begin with.

When you see fake messages coming from software you didn't install, ignore them.

Don't click anywhere inside the message, even if there is a "Close" button. Instead, click the "X" in the upper-right corner of the pop-up window and close the message that way.

This prevents you from triggering the unwanted payload that the message has really come to deliver.

Kevin McDonald: Writer and professional computer/network administrator. He lives in Amarillo with his wife and children, and owns and operates Definition Computers (806-236-9615). E-mail Kevin at askthegeek@definitioncomputers.com with questions you'd like to see answered in this column.

E-mail comments about this story
to the publisher of The Amarillo Independent.

Posted: March 6, 2008