The applications I use (Visio, VPN client for work, etc...) do not run on a Mac, so I'm stuck using PC's...

I restored it to an earlier date but didn't get it all back. Trying plan B now.

This below was plan B and it seems to have worked.........

My Documents and IE Favorites hidden by "Windows Recovery" - Microsoft Answers

VMWare Fusion. Run those apps in Windows right on your Mac desktop. You can even drag and drop between operating systems. Virtualization and cloud is the future. Creating a Windows VM (virtual machine) is dead easy and quick. Copy the original (or take a snapshot) and if something goes wrong (virus) you toss it and start with the original. You can manually copy the VM (files) or take what in virtualization world is called a "snapshot". No more problems.

Great product. Love the Appliance library.

Anyone that wants to try out VM's or alternate operating systems should grab VirtualBox from SUN/Oracle.

https://www.virtualbox.org/

Not as full featured as Fusion but it's free and a great primer on what you can do with VM's.

Whenever I've tried virtualization, I was disappointed by the lack of speed, poor performance and compatibility issues. I'm sure the technology will "get there" soon, though...

Good heavens, what a bear. I had the 2011 round of this virus on my home machine, decided it would be easiest to reinstall from scratch than try to surgically remove it. My Father-in-Law got it on his computer and wouldn't let me wipe-reinstall, so I spent most of a day researching and going through the process to make it die. What a PITA!

The worst part, in my mind, is that there's no reasonably sane way to stop the d*** thing. You can't just close the popup (which is what everyone does) to keep from getting infected. Firewalls are useless. It was pretty much unfazed by the AV that both of us were running. (Avast! and AVG, if memory serves.) Crazy.

Dan

Several folks at our church told me this AM that their PC's are "acting funny" with lots of pop-ups saying they have a virus....

Does anyone know how to get rid of the "Norton Security Scan"?

I've done the usual....control panel uninstall and the going to start, search and open the file...also there is an uninstall program.

Nada.

edit....did the chat with Norton Symantec.....took them 20 minutes of screwing around....finally got rid of it.

Going to a website doesn't seem to be a problem, but opening a link (video, movie, whatever) on a website can get ya.....it opens a hole there. It appears to be spreading like wildfire.
I've found nothing that stops it. The antivirus folk are way behind it and the malware folks seem to be as far back. Thus far, the porsche websites I frequent & Youtube seem to be safe, but....

More work for Art.

Yeah, I need more work.... unpaid work at that.

No A/V software I know will stop this particular strain of malware, at least for now. So far, the "recovery point" feature in Vista and Win7 have taken care of it, but it's a long, tedious process that is beyond the technical abilities of most home PC users...

If you have a modern multi-core machine with decent memory then performance should not be an issue at all...especially for diagram apps like Visio. My i7 Macbook (2 cores + 2 virtual cores) and 4GB RAM runs my Win7 VM really well - WinXP VMs are really fast. I plan to upgrade to 8GB of RAM and will be able to run 2 VMs at the same time when needed.

One of the professional hats I wear involves supporting locked down WinXP client workstations configured with many integrated applications (some of which I provide). In the past that required me to maintain multiple PC boxes for each install version (5 of them) to debug and test with. Now they all live as VMs on my MacBook. I cannot stress how happy I am with this setup.

Good luck.

So, the best cure is prevention? ctrl-alt-delete when any pop up looking even remotely suspicious comes along?

There is no warning or hesitation differing from the opening of a link that I could detect. When it pops up on your desktop (lower right on mine) you're screwed.
I did find a trick to do restore that works & is fairly simple.....PM me if you need it.
As I said, the effinturds are modifying the bug and there's no sense broadcasting
about a hole in their software.

The only way to avoid it is to modify your Internet browsing habits, me thinks.

That alone won't do it. This thing is network aware. Lets say you have four pc's on a home network. You do everything you can to avoid the seedy areas of the Internet, but your kid happens to hit a wrong site and gets it. It starts scanning your network and finds your pc - bang, you get it too, then another pc on the network and another.

OK, I agree, but what do you recommend? a family meeting?:D

Hey, if that works... :D Though, I think the pep talk would go in one ear of a kid and right out the other. :D

Whatever this malware is, it's got to be on some well known websites, not the "bad" places. My father got his from a bogus UPS email with an attachment and a friend's daughter got it from "normal" browsing. It used to be that you could stay away from the "bad" sites and avoid this malware, but not any more...