There seem to be hundreds of guides on the internet on how to remove these virus/exploits but very few on how to prevent them.
These different variations of the same exploit/virus have been around since roughly 2010 and have caused a lot of people headaches!
The first thing to say is Do not pay the £100 fine, you are encouraging these people if you do.
We usually see & remove upwards of 5 infected computers a week and almost without doubt the most asked question is “Why did my anti-virus not stop this?”
Well in short it’s because these virus’s or exploit’s as they should be called use polymorphic code which means that, like the human cold virus, it morphs and ‘changes shape’ effectively, and without going in to too much detail about anti-virus, the way they work is to look for certain snippets of code to identify virus’s, so of course if the code is forever changing it is extremely difficult to keep with them.
Where did the Met Police, PCeU, Strathclyde Police virus come from?
Another frequently asked question, and in the vast majority (90+%) of cases it’s the same source, pornography websites. Although they shall remain nameless we have recently visited someone 4 times in the past month who just can’t help themselves and has managed to get several different variations of this virus. The next biggest culprit is facebook and email spamming – if you don’t know the recipient or the link looks like a weird website e.g. www.f3m7km.com/cgi-bin/test.cgi – DON’T open it!
What can I do to prevent it returning?
Well as previously mentioned these exploits are fairly difficult to detect to anti-virus, but even still it is well worth checking your anti-virus is up to date everyday. Whatever the variation of this virus they all share the same point’s of entry and that is vulnerabilities in the operating system or browser add on’s. The most common of vulnerabilities is Java, in fact Firefox (The browser I use & recommend) now disables Java if its out of date to prevent it being a security issue. The other such vulnerabilities are Flash & Adobe reader.
In summary ensure that your operating system updates are up to date, ensure that you have the latest version of your browser and that all add on’s are up to date.
If you have been unfortunate enough to have this virus enter your PC then cleaning it can be a little tricky. One Touch Services offers virus removal in Egham & Staines, and surrounding area’s and are available 7 days a week. Call us on 01784 770 402 or visit the contact us page.