Yesterday, I was looking at rental cars for my upcoming trip to California for American Society for Horticulture Science conference and my browser shut off. A pseudo anti-virus program starting scanning. I knew the University had switched anti-virus, but this name didn't sound familiar. It told me my computer was infected with all kinds of spyware, trojans, etc. and asked if I wanted to get them off my computer. Having to answer yes or no, the yes answer then informed you to buy the full version of the program. This confirmed my suspicion of it being the virus itself. I could still kind of use my computer, but I constantly got messages about stuff being corrupted and to buy the anti-virus software. Its amazing how when something in your routine gets disrupted, how helpless you feel to do anything. I also got concerned if it was stealing credit card, bank account, and password information from me.
This is similar to what it looked like.
We put in the request to ITS and the guy who helps our department, John, came and helped me out. He had seen this one before in various forms and called it scareware. They scare you into giving them your credit card number. Its neat to watch a tech support guy navigate through a computer's dark alleyways with such skill and ease and find the little file that caused all the problems. He ran several scans, updated my virus software, and got me up and running again. It took about two hours in which we discussed computers, biking, viruses, and ate some animal crackers. He said the virus probably got onto my computer through an ad on a webpage through non-updated flash, java, etc. I was unaware that was possible.
