Metropolitan Police Virus/Malware - REWARD!

[Deleted User]

Hi there - I have also posted this on the Trojan Strathclyde Police thread, but desperate times call for desperate measures! Some folk have looked at it there but no replies yet. I thought I'd do a new post as well.

PLEASE, PLEASE HELP.

Metropolitan Police Virus causing havoc here. We have looked online but virus seems to be like the Borg - it seems to adapt to everything we try as recommended online - presumably the crooks behind it adapt to the fixes people suggest.

Has anyone successfully removed it in the past few days? I am by no means teccy-minded, but younger son is, and so far, no luck.

It is on quite an old Acer notebook, and we can't even open the thing in safe mode.

Ideally what I'd want to do is copy a fix on to a memory stick, plug it into the machine switch it on and as if by magic the problem is solved but it looks like I am too optimistic.

My older son has loads of stuff saved on the machine that is of enormous sentimental value to him - messages etc from his friends when he was REALLY ill etc, and if we simply reinstall windows it will be lost. (Yes - we know that we should have done a back up.)

I'll donate £25 to the charity of the choice of the first person who comes up with a "fix" that works for us. If there is a working "fix" and you don't want to publicise it in case they adapt to it, please pm me instead.

WR

dragonsoul

i dont know this virus at all im afriad, but if it was my pc, i would take the hard drive out and plug it into my linux syste,, retreve the wanted data, then put the hard drive back, then do a reinstal.

assuming you dont have access to a linux system, or have an old pc around that you can convert, i would suggest the following

go to the unbuntu site http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/install-ubuntu-desktop

download unbuntu, and burn it to a CD as described in the instruction, then put the disc in your laptop and boot from that, once its up and running, click on the "try unbuntu" this will run it in a "live" mode, this means it dosnt instal or touch the hard drive, the whole system runs in system memory, so no changes are made

then browser the folders on the system and copy what you want to a memory stick, this way your data is safe

next is tricky, you will need to check if any of the data you have saved is infected, for that you will need to scan it on a windows pc, as im pretty sure you wont be able to download a linux AV on a live system, but i have never tried.

remember do not open anything on the usb stick, just scan it. at this stage it would be a good idea to scan it with whatever you have, anti-virus and anti malware.

with anything like this on a public forum, you will have many people with many differant ideas, but this way fairly simple, and straight forward, the are more complex ways of doing it, but this is the method i would use

LucianH

dragonsoul wrote: »

then put the disc in your laptop and boot from that,

If it doesn't load the CD when you start the laptop, you will have to go into the BIOS to change the boot sequence to boot from CD before the hard disk.

dragonsoul

LucianH wrote: »

If it doesn't load the CD when you start the laptop, you will have to go into the BIOS to change the boot sequence to boot from CD before the hard disk.

ah yes, totally correct, i forgot to mention that lol, thank you LucianH

gonzo127

dragonsoul wrote: »

next is tricky, you will need to check if any of the data you have saved is infected, for that you will need to scan it on a windows pc, as im pretty sure you wont be able to download a linux AV on a live system, but i have never tried.

as above Linux is the way to go for this and excellent advise (although i prefer Linux mint to ubuntu)

however this bit is easier to get around DEPENDING on the age of your system,

and the way to do this is to use a USB stick to boot to instead of CD http://www.pendrivelinux.com/which this you can install your choice of linux on a USB stick instead of CD so not only is it quicker (due to the interface) but you can also set it up to have persistant changes, so downloading and installing clamAV can be done - the main problem is usually if your computer has the option to boot from USB as not all systems do, however most systems withint he last 5 years will have this option

Figment

.....or option 3/4/5/whatever.... remove the hard drive from laptop, put it into a USB caddy, plug the caddy into another machine that has up-to-date AV software installed and scan/clean it.

Hopster_2

You could also use Hirens Boot Disc that has a live version of windows xp built into it, it also comes with unstoppable copier for quick file transfer and has many anti virus scanners to choose from..
Its possible Hirens may remove the virus...

justjohn

use Hiren's BootCD
from a usb stick

That will give you a clean boot. Then run all the virus programs.

always works

martinthebandit

Depends how techy you are but there is a simple ish way

http://deletemalware.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/remove-metropolitan-police-ransomware.html

dragonsoul

gonzo127 wrote: »

as above Linux is the way to go for this and excellent advise (although i prefer Linux mint to ubuntu)

however this bit is easier to get around DEPENDING on the age of your system,

and the way to do this is to use a USB stick to boot to instead of CD http://www.pendrivelinux.com/which this you can install your choice of linux on a USB stick instead of CD so not only is it quicker (due to the interface) but you can also set it up to have persistant changes, so downloading and installing clamAV can be done - the main problem is usually if your computer has the option to boot from USB as not all systems do, however most systems withint he last 5 years will have this option

lol, i was going to suggest this, but as i didnt know how old the laptop was and wasnt sure if it had boot from usb

[Deleted User]

Hi all - been off the web for a while but son asking again about removing the problem on his notebook. No working solution yet.

I am not very "teccy minded" and so far I haven't found a solution. The notebook doesn't have a cd reader - just usb ports.

Ideally what I'm looking for is a fix that I can copy via my computer to a usb stick, plug it in to the infected notebook and fix the problem. Anyone know if that type of solution is feasible?

The reward offer still stands:D!

WR