Suspicious AntiVirus Alert Popped Up on Web Page

Anonymous
2013-05-11T03:08:31+00:00

I am suspicious about messages that popped up when I went to a web page I'd never been to before. First a message popped up stating "Microsoft Antivirus has found critical process activity on your PC. You need to clean your computer to prevent system breakage."  And then right afterwards another message appeared -- I might have pressed okay --  in a rectangular box with a thick red stripe across the top that read "Potential Threat Details," and then below "Microsoft Security Essentials detected potential threats that might compromise your privacy or damage your computer. You need to clean your computer immediately to prevent the system crash."  But I noticed that "might" was spelled "mihgt." Then below that it listed the threats as:

Trojan PSW.Win32Launch

HackTool:Win32/Welevate.A

Adward.Win32Fraud

It said each of the three was "critical" and "active" and recommended I "remove" them.

Then below all this was a box I could check that said "clean computer."

Now aside from the misspelling of "might," I do not have Microsoft Security Essentials; I have Windows Defender, so I'm pretty sure this is a fake alert.

And I didn't press "clean computer." But I'm wondering what would have happened if I had; would I have gotten a virus, or a sales pitch to buy more antivirus software? But mostly I want to know what really will happen when my antivirus program -- which, again, is Windows Defender for Windows 8 -- does detect a real virus. It hasn't happened yet so I don't know, and I also would like to be able to distinguish the real alerts from the fake ones, especially if the fake ones do not have misspelled words as a telling sign.

Thanks

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Security and privacy

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Anonymous
2013-05-11T09:37:27+00:00

It is a fake alert and creater of that alert can enter as many virus names as he/she can, don't worry about that alert. Just practice safe browsing, do not click on Ads (specially of unknown source), always use original software and download them from their genuine sites only. Run scans from the tools you downloaded, and use free version only (neither Pro nor Trial).

About Trojan in quarantine-

Items in quarantine are neutral and cannot harm your PC, just like criminals in jail. There is no need to delete items in quarantine. You can also run a full scan of your PC to ensure no virus is lurking in your PC.

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Anonymous
2013-05-13T15:28:33+00:00

As per your description above, except for the part... "it said it couldn't do much with that"... (Don't know what you mean by this?)

When someone tries to close AdwCleaner after clicking on 'Search' button then AdwCleaner alerts that it has only scanned for Adwares, not removed them and asks to click on 'Delete' button to complete removal. This is what he is trying to say.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-08T21:03:53+00:00

    Thanks for your response.

    I ran the AdwCleaner which found some files which needed to be cleaned, which I did.

    I also performed a scannow on my pc which said that there were some corrupted files that could not be removed and I contact Microsoft Live Chat.

    They have said that there are corrupted registry keys due to the presence of polymorphic infections and harmful viruses in the computer which require a manual repair.

    They said that if this is not fixed immediately it will crash the OS system, affect personal data, software, MS Office, emails, personal files and financial data. 

    They said they would charge me to fix this, to which I declined.

    It this worth getting fixed or would I be better off buying a new pc?

    I cannot understand how there can be so many errors and viruses.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-08T15:19:16+00:00

    Are you sure the you have been taken to after clicking on that popup is of AVG? I think its fake one. Since Malwarebytes, Safety Scanner and AVG gave clean results I can say your PC do not have any virus or trojan but it may have adware which is the main cause of these kind of popups (antivirus scanners don't remove adwares as they are not threats, just junk programs). To get rid of adwares run AdwCleaner and Junkware Removal Tool.

    @CL1977: You also please run scan with AdwCleaner and Junkware Removal Tool.

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