my computer keeps getting infected... with antivirus software

[Hero in a half shell]

It has happened two or three times now, some anti-virus software I haven't heard of before appears on screen, starts to scan my computer and tells me it has already found 8 bazillion trojan horses, keyloggers etc. and I should pay for it to clean my system. At first I thought these were just viruses posing as antivirus software, as they would shut down every programme, task manager etc. telling me they were all infected, and it was impossible to uninstall normally.

To stop this I decided to change my anti-virus software, since AVG free did absolutely nothing to prevent these things installing themselves and was disabled by them without any trouble. While searching I was shocked to find that the programmes that had attacked my computer were all legitimate, popular anti-virus programmmes.

I'm not exactly computer savvy, but I believe the programmes would enter via my temporary folders, and install itself from there into my programs, somehow giving itself full permission to my system and having no uninstall option, so I had to restart in safe mode, delete the programme when it wasn't running, and then blitz the temporary files, or it would duplicate and reinstall itself from there when I next turned the computer on. Clever Girl.

I since changed to 'Avast' antivirus software (free) but it happened again, completely bypassing my firewall etc. I thought of trying 'Antivir' software, they were the second most popular after AVG on a review site I went to, but they were one of the turds who infected me in the first place.

I just want to ask has anyone had this happen to them, is it really the antivirus programmes, (It would link me directly to their site) how is it possibly legal, and how can I secure my computer against it, I am currently using Avast and the standard windows Vista firewall, (yes I'm still on Vista) should I get a separate firewall programme as well?

EDIT: No it wasn't Norton, Antivir was one of them, I had the other two written down but can't find them, they were similar in type to Antivir, with equally generic names, you could just download them off the internet with a subscription fee

 

[Stasisesque]

It isn't Norton, is it?

 

[Volstag9]

Ah this is legendary! I've had it and my friends have had it.'it's an annoying thing but I got rid of it twice.

Get malwarebytes and rkill and kick it's ass. What's the fake anti virus called?

 

[master m99]

whats it called? when i get these i just do start-all programs-accesorys-system tools-system restore then chose a date from last week/mounth

 

[NooNameLeft]

http://www.malwarecity.com/blog/how-to-remove-rogue-security-software-274.html
This should work.

 

[TheComedown]

I'm not exactly computer savvy, but I believe the programmes would enter via my temporary folders, and install itself from there into my programs, somehow giving itself full permission to my system and having no uninstall option, so I had to restart in safe mode, delete the programme when it wasn't running, and then blitz the temporary files, or it would duplicate and reinstall itself from there when I next turned the computer on.

That's a Virus, by definition its a virus and certainly isn't legit. They may be posing as actual programs but they do shit all other then annoy the hell out of you until you consider handing over your credit card, in which case you lose.

If you look closer at the pop ups there should be some clear giveaways that they are fakes.

Anyway sounds like the virus is already far beyond just your temp files. At this point in time your best bet to get rid of the fucker would be to completely reformat your computer. As the one guaranteed method to make sure it goes and stays gone.

 

[Volstag9]

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-antivir try that as well that's how I got rid of it twice. If it is antivir.

 

[Lusty]

It's called scareware. Malwarebytes is a good suggestion works with a lot of these things.

 

[Jelly ^.^]

You have a hijacked browser redirecting you to scareware fake antivirus programs marauding as legitimate ones.

Run HijackThis, find and stop the processes from running using Malwarebytes' CCleaner and run CWShredder. You should be fine.

 

[culade]

Gotta love those, scams to force panicky gullable unsavvy folks into buying their products. Honestly if it had half that many viruses, the computer would cease to function. I typically use spybot S&D if hit with those, then uninstall it.

 

[teqrevisited]

Run those programs above, follow the steps and you should be ok.

I love these kinds of badly put together fake antivirus programs. If you look hard enough (Sometimes it's right on the tooltip...) they make a metric ton of spelling mistakes and sometimes even miss words out entirely.

 

[tomme69]

It sounds like antivirus 2008 and no antivirus is gonna get rid of it , avg is fine better then avast but try spybot and this http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-antivirus2008.html

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I had this once.

It's a pain in the ass, but it doesn't actually harm your computer unless it happens to re-direct you to a worse virus.

 

[darth.pixie]

Recommend Kaspersky. I don't like Avast (it sucks), AVG (deleted a dll without permission) or others. Kasp keeps a lot of things away.

As for that, it's just spamware...not sure if it's legal or not. And the firewall (windows one) is not very good as a general rule.

 

[Au Naturel.]

Ah this is legendary! I've had it and my friends have had it.'it's an annoying thing but I got rid of it twice.

Get malwarebytes and rkill and kick it's ass. What's the fake anti virus called?

This guy! I have had a similar problem before. Just use rkill to stop it from opening up and hit it with MalwareBytes to destroy it.

 

[AmayaOnnaOtaku]

Recommend Kaspersky. I don't like Avast (it sucks), AVG (deleted a dll without permission) or others. Kasp keeps a lot of things away.

As for that, it's just spamware...not sure if it's legal or not. And the firewall (windows one) is not very good as a general rule.

Though Kaspersky thinks Rkill is a trojan.

 

[darth.pixie]

Though Kaspersky thinks Rkill is a trojan.

It shares similar programming to a trojan, yes (kills processes, imports reg files etc). Just put it on exceptions and it's fine.

Kasp thought a program I wrote was a worm. It does that. But as far as antiviruses go, it's pretty much the best.