I was reading some Survivor news and then all of a sudden a window popped up to tell me that there was a virus on my computer and that I needed to install some program to get rid of it. My BS detector immediately went hot. I never remembered installing any anti-virus (probably not a good idea) and how come all of a sudden there was all this crap on my computer?
I did a Google search of "XP Security Tool 2010 Firewall Alert" and it confirmed my suspicions that this was scareware!
How to Get Rid of It
Trend Micro Housecall and WinClam did not work for me. I went to XP Security Tool 2010 Analysis and Removal at MalwareHelp.org and followed the instructions. I ran their registry file and then installed MalwareBytes’s Anti-Malware. After this program detected the scareware I removed them, turned System Restore off and then on, and then restarted the computer. The problem seemed to go away.
To prevent future problems, I installed Avast Free Antivirus, which I hope will protect my computer.
Conclusion
It's always a dilemma when you have a rogue security software on your computer because you have to get rid of it with another security software and you never know if the software you use to get rid of the rogue software is not a rogue software itself! It's therefore necessary that you trust someone because trusting no one makes you worse off. It is like the Survivor castaways who do not know who to trust but must trust someone if they want to end up further in the game.
What I found was that there were certain organizations that I do trust, e.g. Google and CNET. Google especially allows me to see what others think about an issue so I can get multiple perspectives.
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