How to get rid of this fake anti virus?

[Lizard]

Got some website that downloaded something called smart fortress. I know its fake and actually a virus so how do I get rid of it? Or should my normal anti virus deal with it?

 

[nick09]

Download and scan with malwarebytes. That should do the job. You can follow the instructions here.

 

[Grayfox]

Normal anti-viruses are not anti spyware programs even though they say they are, I would say use spybot S&D 2.0(beta) or malwarebytes then use combofix this 2 step fix gets rid of 99% of issues.

 

[Lizard]

This is more of a virus as it likes to close everything now and again and ask me for money plus it came with several trojans. I think I got rid of it though as it downloaded like a normal program so control panel delete and I have had no problems yet ie closing programs, it telling me im full of viruses etc.

Or is it possibly still there?

 

[MSTER232]

Normal anti-viruses are not anti spyware programs even though they say they are, I would say use spybot S&D 2.0(beta) or malwarebytes then use combofix this 2 step fix gets rid of 99% of issues.

Isn't that illegal that it doesn't do what it says it does on the tin?

 

[wfooshee]

These fake antivirus things can usually be killed by Malwarebytes, but maybe not permanently. The installer may be a rootkit that Malwarebytes won't find, so it comes back in a few days or weeks. Combofix has a good shot at the installer portion.

Installing the hard disk into another PC as a second drive and scanning it there will allow it to be scanned without the rootkit running.

 

[Ross]

If you back up all of your stuff onto an external hard drive and then install Windows again from a disk, that'll get rid of it. I recently spent about £300 on doing up my dad's old laptop which was full of viruses. I got a Windows CD for about £50 and installed it which got rid of all of the viruses permanently.

 

[bergauk]

This is more of a virus as it likes to close everything now and again and ask me for money plus it came with several trojans. I think I got rid of it though as it downloaded like a normal program so control panel delete and I have had no problems yet ie closing programs, it telling me im full of viruses etc.

Or is it possibly still there?

It's still there. You should have been removing it in safemode.

 

[Lizard]

It's still there. You should have been removing it in safemode.

Really? Im not having any trouble off it and the malwarebytes thingy is scanning now so surely that will clean it no?

 

[bergauk]

Really? Im not having any trouble off it and the malwarebytes thingy is scanning now so surely that will clean it no?

You should have been following Nick's guild that he posted. That'll completely remove it. What you did more than likely only removed bits and pieces of it.

 

[Lizard]

You should have been following Nick's guild that he posted. That'll completely remove it. What you did more than likely only removed bits and pieces of it.

I have pretty much. Able to skip the chamelon thing as the malware wasnt stoppping me from opening malwarebytes like it should do.


This found 4 threats on top of the ones I had already got rid of through the standard windows defender thing.

 

[Seismica]

I've fixed something similar before. I gave them the advice to install Malwarebytes anti-malware and scan, but the fake anti-virus wouldn't let it install. The solution was to press ctrl+shift+esc (not ctrl+alt-del) and end the process in question. Then it can be installed and it should detect it no problem, and it worked in that instance.

From the guide that nick09 posted, the steps above may not fully remove it.

I think as long as the process is closed before you run malwarebytes, it should detect and remove it as usual, but to be more thorough you could do it the other way (Especially considering there might be multiple processes from the virus running). I would advise following the guide posted, including the Chameleon bit.

 

[Lizard]

Ok what I have done now.

Run chameleon.
Deleted the smart fortress thing in add and remove programs in the control panel.
Run both the windows defender and the malwarebytes thing and deleted everything they found.

Anything else I need to do? Im a bit confused all these different websites say do different things.