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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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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
    2013-05-12T02:51:10+00:00

    Hi,

    Yes, I learned that too late because Windows Defender turned off after I installed AVG. But why does it work then with the free program of Malwarebytes and SuperantiSpyware, but not with AVG and Avast.

    Thanks

    MBAM and SAS are not full antivirus programs and will not register to Windows as such. Any compatible antivirus program will register to Windows and Defender steps down to allow the 3rd party program provide the protection.

    -steve

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-05-12T02:10:48+00:00

    Hi,

    Yes, I learned that too late because Windows Defender turned off after I installed AVG. But why does it work then with the free program of Malwarebytes and SuperantiSpyware, but not with AVG and Avast.

    Thanks

    :-) One more time I recommend you thoroughly review[Windows Defender on Windows 8

    The following excerpt can be easily found in the above document:

    1. Can I have more than one real-time anti-malware product installed?

    No.  Having more than one real-time anti-malware product installed will compete with other anti-malware product(s), and can cause severe performance problems and system stability issues, and may limit the effectiveness of the products installed.  Even if you attempt to have more than one product installed, with one active and another disabled, the disabled product will likely still have active components and/or drivers installed that will conflict with WD.  The important issue here is that any other product with real-time scanning will conflict with WD (or any other real-time product).

    However, you can have an on-demand scanner, such as Malwarebytes, installed.  Malwarebytes offers two different scanners – one on-demand (free), and one real-time (paid).  The on-demand scanner does not conflict with WD’s real-time scanning.  Some users consider having one real-time product (e.g. WD) and an on-demand product (e.g. Malwarebytes (free)) a good combination on their system.

    AND

    See the following compliments of Wikipedia:

    Real-time protection

    Real-time protection, on-access scanning, background guard, resident shield, autoprotect, and other synonyms refer to the automatic protection provided by most antivirus, anti-spyware, and other anti-malware programs. This monitors computer systems for suspicious activity such as computer viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious objects in 'real-time', in other words while data loaded into the computer's active memory: when inserting a CD, opening an email, or browsing the web, or when a file already on the computer is opened or executed.^[24]^

    AND

    If you have AVG on your computer now please enjoy using it (yes, it's a good program) and you can seek any further assistance you might need regarding malware concerns from

    http://www.avg.com/us-en/support or http://forums.avg.com/us-en/avg-forums

    Regards...

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-05-11T23:58:14+00:00

    Hi,

    Yes, I learned that too late because Windows Defender turned off after I installed AVG. But why does it work then with the free program of Malwarebytes and SuperantiSpyware, but not with AVG and Avast.

    Thanks

    Was this answer helpful?

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