Warning: Microsoft Privacy Center is a Virus
The other day my mom called me at work for some computer help. I work at a software company as a marketing and PR manager. This also means that I am my parents’ help desk by association. I know just enough about technology to be dangerous.
So mom calls and says that MS privacy center is running on her computer and the voice of a British woman is talking in the background. So while she was on the phone, I searched MS Privacy Center and discovered that it was a rogue virus, malware to be exact. And it’s not pretty.
It took over her computer by autorunning and scanning her computer and she could not do anything else. It also prompts for you to buy the software and enter credit or debit card payment. DO NOT DO THIS.
She hit control-alt-delete and was able to go to the task manager. From there, we were able to disable the .exe file under the processes tab and then I sent her an email to download the malware remover software. This took about a half day but was worth helping my mom out. Here are instructions if this happens to you.
If you see this or if it happens on your system, follow these steps:
Disable the exe file in the Processes tab of Task Manager (filename: pc.exe)
Download this link and run the malware remover software: Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Download Link
Here is another explanation to remove the virus.
Be careful out there!
Posted on May 29, 2009, in technology, Uncategorized and tagged hoax, malware, microsoft, microsoft privacy center, privacy center, privacy centre, virus. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
This happened to me a couple of days ago. I could not activate the task manager so thank the lord I had all my program and XP installation disks and those for the peripherals.
I had to reinstall XP then sort the rest. Thankfully, whilst the programs had to be re set up, all data files remained on the hard drive. You say i’ts not pretty! It could have been disastrous.
One benefit from all this is that I have a clean registry and the old beast is running a lot better!
SR
Not pretty indeed. Had to run kill disk and re install windows. I was glad that I backed up my computer.