Perfect Defender 2009 part I

Steve Viegas · 01-11-2009, 09:37 AM

Last night my wife told me that her computer was acting funny. She told me that Windows security kept telling her that she had a virus and that Google was now allowing her to search a variety of items. When she clicked on the Windows security item, it took her to a product called Perfect Defender 2009 and that they wanted her to pay for it. I told her I would check into it. That was at 9:00 last night. I went to bed at 5:00 this morning, but I think I won and in order to possibly save you countless hours (well, at least 8, if you are counting) as you have done for me with regards to my Porsche, here is what I found.

Once infected with Perfect Defender 2009, there does not appear to be much that can rid your computer of it. Perfect Defender takes your browser over (I have Exlporer, FireFox and Opera, it defeats all of them) and will not allow you to go to most of the anti-virus websites that you are familiar with. Norton, McAfee, AVG, no go.

The site that I was finally allowed to hit was StopZilla. Don't go there! It might be worse than the original virus! I ran this program as it promised to discover Perfect Defender 2009 and allow me to remove it. The reviews I found on line were suspect, but not all bad so I thought I would give it ago. Waste of time. It tells me it found something like 300 viruses on my computer, including Perfect Defender 2009. One of the complaints that I read about this software online was that it basically made up stuff to find on your system. I have to believe this is a case of that...anyway...

When I tried to quarentine much of what it found, it then told me there was a charge for this service. I had to get a registration key. I was not too happy about this but feeling defeated, I decided OK. Best thing about Perfect Defender was that it would not allow me to download the key. I tried many different things but Perfect Defender kept thwarting me. Finally, I went to a different computer to see if I could find a key for StopZilla online. What I found was a Yahoo Answers page that questioned the sanity of anyone using StopZilla. It pointed me to a little known anti-virus software company that might be able to solve my probems.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Tired and wanting to go to bed, but not wanting to lose this fight, I decided I could try this as well (at this point, I had tried 6 different anti-virus softwares and Lavasoft). Perfect Defender let me go out and download this package. I ran it, it found 8 malicious programs including Perfect Defender.

I started the system again, and it works! I was able to use google and I was able to get to the antivirus pages that were previously blocked. Then I tried to uninstall StopZilla (yes this means at this point in time I had two anti-virus softwares going at the same time. I understand this is a big mistake, but at 4:30 in the morning, I figured I am allowed). Uninstalling StopZilla was a pain. When I went to do it it tried to stop me. It even offerred me a free version!

Anyway, the moral of this story is, if you have this Perfect Defender problem, you can probably avoid hours of fruitless effort if you simply go to:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

I have no affiliation with this company. I am a commercial real estate broker.

Best of Luck,

Steve

HardDrive · 01-11-2009, 10:22 AM

I'm sorry to hear you went through that mess.

The next time this happens, try bleepingcomputer.com.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/malware-removal/remove-perfect-defender-2009

They typically will either have a fix, or if its something really new, people in the forums might be working on it. They have an entire section just on spyware removal.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/

Steve Viegas · 01-11-2009, 10:56 AM

Harddrive,

Thanks for the information. I saw the bleepingcomputer come up on the search, but I had never heard of it and I was concerned, with the name, that it might not be legit. Next time I will remember to give them a shot.

Cheers,

Steve

Britwrench · 11:33 AM

I had "Anti-Virus 2007' (and 2008) infect my desktop computers, had to get a Pelicanite (Nize) to sort it all out.
I now have Avast and SpyBot to keep the computers clean.

At Christmas Day dinner, the host's wife laptop got the same bug too.

One would have thought that a certain software manufacturer not a million miles away from Seattle would have sorting this out on their priority list, but apparently not.

HardDrive · 01-11-2009, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Britwrench

One would have thought that a certain software manufacturer not a million miles away from Seattle would have sorting this out on their priority list, but apparently not.

Sorry, no can do. Too busy coming up with new 'features' that no one wants for Windows 7.