Advice needed please

LilacLouisa

Hi, I have a new vaio laptop which arrived a month ago complete with McAfee (for a trial period) Yesterday evening I got a personal system warning advising I had loads of malware problems, including about 9 Trojan worms. McAfee seemed to have turned itself off, and the personal system wanted me to buy a license from them to sort the problems out.

I wasn`t sure what to do (you may have gathered by now I am not a techie) I was thinking of buying a system, Kapersky maybe?.

I ran spybot and it confirmed that I had loads of bad things on my pc, and then kindly got rid of them for me. I have downloaded Avast for the moment, but McAfee is also showing itself as being on.

Would anyone be kind enough to advise me on how to make my pc safe please? Although I am a complete dummy with regard to the techie side of things, I rely on my pc a lot for all sorts of everyday things.

macman

The 'personal system' is a scam designed to get your payment and credit card details. You can't run 2 antivirus programs on one machine, they will fight each other. I would remove McAfee and then do a full scan with Avast to see what else it finds.
I don't see how McAfee can have turned itself off-are you sure it hasn't just expired after the trial period? If an AV program is turned off it always shouts warnings at you every time you boot up.
Kaspersky Internet Securitywould be my AV of choice for a paid one, for a free AV I would opt for Avira. But if you have Barclays Online Banking you can get Kaspersky free anyway, otherwise it's about £20 on Amazon.

debitcardmayhem

Hi Lilaclouisa,
its not a good idea to have antivirus products running at one time so if you want to uninstall mcafee following this link
To help out with getting rid of the malware you appear to have follow the following (courtesy of Browntoa)
Please download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and save it to your desktop.

• Make sure you are connected to the Internet.
• Double-click on mbam-setup.exe to install the application.
• When the installation begins, follow the prompts and do not make any changes to default settings.
• When installation has finished, make sure you leave both of these checked:
  • Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
  • Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• Then click Finish.
• MBAM will automatically start and you will be asked to update the program before performing a scan. If an update is found, the program will automatically update itself. Press the OK button to close that box and continue. If you encounter any problems while downloading the updates, manually download them from here and just double-click on mbam-rules.exe to install.
• On the Scanner tab:
  • Make sure the "Perform Quick Scan" option is selected.
  • Then click on the Scan button.
• If asked to select the drives to scan, leave all the drives selected and click on the Start Scan button.
• The scan will begin and "Scan in progress" will show at the top. It may take some time to complete so please be patient.
• When the scan is finished, a message box will say "The scan completed successfully. Click 'Show Results' to display all objects found".
• Click OK to close the message box and continue with the removal process.
• Back at the main Scanner screen, click on the Show Results button to see a list of any malware that was found.
• Make sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
• When removal is completed, a log report will open in Notepad.
• The log is automatically saved and can be viewed by clicking the Logs tab in MBAM.
• Copy and paste the contents of that report in your next reply and exit MBAM.

Note: If MBAM encounters a file that is difficult to remove, you may be asked to reboot your computer so it can proceed with the disinfection process. Regardless if prompted to restart the computer or not, please do so immediately. Failure to reboot normally (not into safe mode) will prevent MBAM from removing all the malware. MBAM may make changes to your registry as part of its disinfection routine. If you're using other security programs that detect registry changes, they may alert you after scanning with MBAM. Please permit the program to allow the changes.

lee5768

remove mcafee as it will conflict with Avast

take it you have a wirless router ? this will have a firewall of some sort as part of it
new laptop will have windows 7??? this has an ok firewall

so all you need is avast

change your internet browser to firefox its more secure than IE.

goto goole image and search for SecurityTool is this what the box looked like that said you had worms

I would have posted a pic but as a new user it wont let me

LilacLouisa

macman wrote: »

The 'personal system' is a scam designed to get your payment and credit card details. You can't run 2 antivirus programs on one machine, they will fight each other. I would remove McAfee and then do a full scan with Avast to see what else it finds.
I don't see how McAfee can have turned itself off-are you sure it hasn't just expired after the trial period? If an AV program is turned off it always shouts warnings at you every time you boot up.
Kaspersky Internet Securitywould be my AV of choice for a paid one, for a free AV I would opt for Avira. But if you have Barclays Online Banking you can get Kaspersky free anyway, otherwise it's about £20 on Amazon.

Thank you, I did wonder if it was some sort of scam, in any case I was reluctant to give card details over the net when my pc was infected.

I bank with the Halifax, but would be happy to pay for security, with being so clueless I feel it would be worth the cost to save me from all the hassle.

LilacLouisa

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Hi Lilaclouisa,
its not a good idea to have antivirus products running at one time so if you want to uninstall mcafee following this"


Hi debitcardmayhem,
Thanks, I am going to take all advice and remove McAfee to start with, I thought it was on free trial for 60 days, and was looking on here for advice on the best system to buy. Have had to remove your link because I am not allowed to post links!

zartub

norton internet security 2010 is half price at wh smith`s :eek:

debitcardmayhem

LilacLouisa wrote: »

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Hi Lilaclouisa,
its not a good idea to have antivirus products running at one time so if you want to uninstall mcafee following this"


Hi debitcardmayhem,
Thanks, I am going to take all advice and remove McAfee to start with, I thought it was on free trial for 60 days, and was looking on here for advice on the best system to buy. Have had to remove your link because I am not allowed to post links!

No problems , looks like you won't be a newbie for long keep us posted

LilacLouisa

lee5768 wrote: »

remove mcafee as it will conflict with Avast

take it you have a wirless router ? this will have a firewall of some sort as part of it
new laptop will have windows 7??? this has an ok firewall

so all you need is avast

change your internet browser to firefox its more secure than IE.

goto goole image and search for SecurityTool is this what the box looked like that said you had worms


I would have posted a pic but as a new user it wont let me

Hi 5768

I have a BT hub which has pitiful speeds, but BT tell me the broadband in this area has poor speeds and no-one else could do better. The laptop has arrived with windows 7 installed. Will go and look on google now.

macman

Test your speed on this site and post the results.
https://www.speedtest.net.

sam.wright_2

I've been using Microsoft Security Essentials since getting my new laptop, and it has worked perfectly. Best of all, it's free. Personally i woulod never let norton within 50 feet of my computer!