[SGVLUG] AV Guard Virus

[Harold Totten]

Have you used AVG or other rescue disk?
Harold


On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 7:52 PM, juanslayton @dslextreme.com <
juanslayton at dslextreme.com> wrote:

> Could use a little advice myself; apologies for the length of the comment.
>
> On Tuesday, October 4, I used my Linux machine (Fedora 13 or 14) for
> various things, including bumbling around the suspect site (which I will
> refrain from naming).  Closed down the machine in good condition, and drove
> to Arizona the next day.
>
> Used Mom's computer (Windows XP) for various things, including visiting the
> suspect site and using a link there to forward material to a friend in
> Stockton (also running Windows).  Left the machine running for a while, and
> when I came back, found the screen frozen.  Rebooted manually and found a
> display "AV Guard," purporting to be an anti-virus program that had
> identified malware on our system that it could remove (for a fee).  Of
> course, AV Guard is itself a virus.
>
> And a fairly sophisticated one, I should say.  It not only blocked
> anti-virus programming resident in the computer; it also redirected my
> attempts to download anti-malware on line.  It repeatedly froze the machine,
> until ultimately it simply refused to boot at all.  No response to the power
> switch, just a blinking green led on the power supply.  We sent that machine
> back to the store; I haven't yet heard the outcome.
>
> Of course we called our friends in Stockton and warned them not to download
> our e-mail.  Too late, they were already dealing with the AV Guard.  After
> our warning, they took it to a local pro, who removed it for about $45.
> Well, those were Windows machines, we expect that kind of vulnerability from
> Redmond.  I run Linux, should have little to worry about.
>
> Guess again.  Drove back to Azusa, got home Friday night.  And my Linux
> box, which was working perfectly when I shut it down on Tuesday, refused to
> boot.  It would spin up for a few seconds, then immediately shut down,
> before even getting a screen display.  It would not boot with installation
> disks from Slackware, Ubuntu, or Fedora.  Would not boot with live Fedora.
> Tried to boot with live Ubuntu and managed to get a few lines of text before
> the screen froze.
>
> So I pulled the hard drive (this was on my laptop), stuck it in my desktop,
> saved important files on a memory stick, and did a clean installation of
> Ubuntu.  Put
>  the hard drive back into the laptop and tried to boot.  No luck.
>
> I'm left with 3 questions:
> 1)  How can this virus hose the BIOS so one machine will not boot, and
> another appears to have a failed power supply.
> 2)  Is there any way to revive my laptop, short of replacing the mother
> board?
> 3)  Any of you guys need a nearly new battery for an Acer Extensa 1000?
>



-- 
"poverty is violence against the oppressed"

Harold Totten
http://www.HaroldTotten.com
Tujunga, California
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