Sunday, May 23, 2010

How to remove Win Antispyware Center (Removal guide)

Win Antispyware Center is a new rogue antispyware from the XP Internet Security 2010 family of rogues as XP Guardian, XP AntiSpyware 2010, XP Antivirus Pro, Antivirus XP 2010, XP Smart security 2010, XP Defender Pro, Total XP Security, etc.

HijackThis shows Win Antispyware Center infection:

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Win Antispyware Center] C:\Program Files\WinAntispywareCenter\av.exe
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Win Antispyware Center] C:\Program Files\WinAntispywareCenter\av.exe

What Win Antispyware Center does

The design of Win Antispyware Center looks like a normal antispyware tool, but in reality, this program can not remove viruses, trojans, etc., nor will be protect your computer from legitimate future infections. Win Antispyware Center created with one purpose to trick you into purchasing the full version of the software.

Win Antispyware Center is promoted and installed through the use of trojans. When the trojan is activated, it will download and install the rogue onto your computer without your permission.

Win Antispyware Center - screen shoot from Siri-urz blog

Once started, Win Antispyware Center will add itself into Windows registry to run automatically every time when your computer starts. After that, it starts scanning procedure, which results in finding a lot of trojans, viruses and other malicious programs. Obviously, such results are a fraud, the program want to force you to believe that your computer is infected.

While Win Antispyware Center is running, it will display various misleading notifications and fake security alerts from Windows taskbar. Some of the alerts:

Virus intrusion!
Your computer security is risk. Spyware, worm and trojans
were detected in the background. Prevent data corruption and
credit card information theft. Safeguard your system and
perform a free security scan now.
Threat detected!
Security alert! Your computer was found to be infected with
privacy-threatening software. Private data may get stolen
and system damage may be severe. Recover your PC from
the infection right now, perform a security scan.

However, all of these alerts and notifications is a fake and like false scan result should be ignored.

From the above, obviously, Win Antispyware Center is a dangerous program, whose presence on your computer is absolutely undesirable. Use the Win Antispyware Center removal guide or the instructions below to remove this malware for free.

How to remove Win Antispyware Center


Download fix1.zip from here and unzip it to your desktop. Double click to fix.reg and click Yes to confirm.

Download OTM by OldTimer from here and save to your desktop.
Run OTM, copy,then paste the following text in “Paste Instructions for Items to be Moved” window (under the yellow bar):

:reg
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
“Win Antispyware Center”=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
“Win Antispyware Center”=-

:files
C:\Program Files\WinAntispywareCenter

:Commands
[emptytemp]
[Reboot]


Click the red Moveit! button. If you are asked to reboot the machine choose Yes.

Download Malwarebytes Anti-malware. Double click mbam-setup.exe to install the application. When installation is complete, make sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish. If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.

Once the program has loaded you will see a screen like below.


Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

Select "Perform Quick Scan", then click Scan. When the scan is done, click OK, then Show Results to view the results. You will see a list of malware that  Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware found on your computer. Note: list of malware may be different than what is shown in the screen below.




Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - lists of malicious software

Make sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected. Once disinfection is finished, a log will open in Notepad and you may be prompted to Restart.

Note: if you can`t download or run these suggested program above, boot your computer in Safe mode with networking and repeat the above steps once again.

If the instructions does not help you, then ask for help in the Spyware removal forum.

No comments:

Post a Comment