A computer at my work was recently infected with the Web Protect for Windows virus. This is a particularly nasty virus. Not only does the virus get onto your computer, but it downloads other viruses onto your computer by affecting your web browsers (potentially all of them). The worst part is that when you try to uninstall Web Protect for Windows by using Add/Remove in the Control Panel it will actually try to install something else. Now, it's possible that if you select custom install and then deselect everything that it's trying to install that it will in fact uninstall Web Protect without installing something else, but I didn't want to take that risk and I wouldn't suggest that anyone else take that risk. So, while everywhere else on the web that I've seen suggests that you go to Control Panel and uninstall Web Protect from there I decided to do something different - something which worked without installing more viruses onto the computer.
To uninstall Web Protect for Windows without going to your Control Panel you have to download a separate uninstaller. I downloaded Revo Uninstaller. Run the uninstaller on Web Protect and when it starts to go through the uninstallation process that you were trying to avoid before close out of that uninstallation. So (this is with Revo, I'm not sure what it will be like with other uninstallers) Revo will start uninstall, then it will go through the Control Panel process where Web Protect tries to download more software at which point you close out of the Web Protect uninstallation (but not the Revo uninstallation). Then Revo should continue and it will give you a list of stuff from your Rootkit that was downloaded by Web Protect. Let Revo do its thing with deleting all of that bad stuff and at the end Web Protect will be completely uninstalled.
After this you should download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. Run that on your computer to remove anything left that was downloaded by Web Protect (because Web Protect downloads other viruses onto your computer, too). Malwarebytes is wonderful software that will remove things that virus scanners don't. Of course, have a good virus scanner on your computer to try and prevent this from happening again.
Although I didn't keep having problems with my web browsers, if you still think your web browsers are being affected then go to Malware Tips. This page on Malware Tips has instructions for uninstalling Web Protect the bad way, but after that it has instructions for resetting all of your web browsers to remove anything that might be left over from Web Protect. However, when I used Revo and Malwarebytes I didn't have anymore problems with Web Protect at all. But the virus was only on the computer for a couple of days, so if you think it's been on your computer for longer then you might want to take this extra precaution.
No comments:
Post a Comment