My Computer Mechanic

BEWARE: A Trojan virus disguised as a Microsoft Security Essentials Alert is going around the Internet!!

October 4, 2010 -- As you know, My Computer Mechanic has been recommending for awhile now the use of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) as your Internet security software and we continue to do so. Also, there has been an increase in the number and variety of "fake" anti-virus warnings going around the Internet infecting users' computers. Well, these two issues have now converged.

What does this infection do?

The fake MSE Alert is a Trojan that attempts to trick you into thinking you are infected with a virus so that you will purchase one of 5 fake (or rogue) anti-virus programs that it is distributing. This Trojan masquerades as an alert from the legimate MSE program. It is titled "Microsoft Security Essentials Alert," and it will look IDENTICAL to a real alert message. It states that a virus was detected on your computer and it will list it as "Unknown Win32/Trojan" and state that it is a severe infection.

The FAKE alert looks like this:

A REAL alert will look like this:

IT IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO RECOGNIZE THE DIFFERENCE! LOOK CLOSELY AT BOTH OF THE EXAMPLES ABOVE AND NOTE THESE TWO DIFFERENCES THAT WILL POSITIVELY IDENTIFY THE FAKE ALERT.

#1:

• The FAKE Alert will list the "Detected items" as: Unknown Win32/Trojan

• The REAL Alert will list the "Detected items" with the specific infection's name.

#2:

• The FAKE Alert will not have a drop down box under "Recommendation." It will only list "Remove."

• The REAL Alert will have a drop down box that has an arrow that you can click on and see several recommendations.

If you identify the Alert as REAL -- click on "Clean Computer." This will allow MSE to get rid of the detected infection.

If you identify the Alert as FAKE -- CALL US!! We can remove the infection for you.

Microsoft Security Essentials continues to be a highly effective Internet security software package. We will continue to recommend it and install it on our customers' computers.

In conclusion, this infection is one more in a series of fake anti-virus warnings that are circulating on the Internet. The uniqueness of this one is that it copies the MSE alert EXACTLY -- except for the two differences noted above. Because of the unique nature of this infection and because of our recommendation and installation on hundreds of computers that we have fixed, we wanted to alert you to this problem as soon as we became aware of it.