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Thursday, October 16, 2008

XP Antivirus 2008, XP Antivirus 2009, and XPAntiVirus

Extracted from Source

What this programs does:
XP Antivirus 2008, XP Antivirus 2009, and XPAntiVirus are rogue antivirus programs that, when run, display false results as a tactic to scare you into purchasing the software. Older versions of XP Antivirus would create 9 entries in your Windows Registry that impersonate infections on your machine. In reality, though, these registry entries were harmless and had absolutely no effect on your computer. Instead, these entries were set so that XP AntiVirus can find them when scanning your computer and report them as infections. The newer of versions of the program , such as XP Antivirus 2008 and XP Antivirus 2009, instead just display false results when scanning your computer that state infections were found. In order to remove these fake infections, though, you would first need to purchase the software as the trial does not allow you to remove them.
While running, XP Antivirus will also display fake alerts stating that you are infected or under attack from some type of threat. These alerts are fake and can be ignored. If you do click on the alert, though, it will prompt you to purchase the software. Examples of text contained in these alerts can be found below.

Privacy Violation alert!
XP antivirus detected Privacy Violation. Some program is secretly sending your private data to untrusted internet host. Click here to block this activity by removing threats (Recommended).
or
System files modification alert!
Some critical system files of your computer were modified by malicious program. It may cause system instability and data loss. Click here to block unathorised
<sic> modification by removing threats (Recommended).

As you can see these programs are fraudware because they make changes to your computer and then state these changes are infections as a scare tactic to have you purchase the software. It goes without saying that under no circumstances should you buy it. The older program, XPAntivirus, does come with a removal option in the computer's Add or Remove Programs list, but when you attempt to uninstall it, all that happens is the entry is removed from the list and program's process is terminated. Next time you reboot, XP AntiVirus will start up again. The newer versions of the program do not contain an entry in the Add or Remove Programs list at all.

XP Antivirus 2008 screenshot
XP Antivirus 2008 screenshot
For more screen shots of this infection click on the image above.
There are a total of 7 images you can view.

Tools Needed for this fix:

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