Email Scam

Hi Everybody

My father as just become victam of an email scam which as destroyed all his files, he sent me the following message, read and bewarned!

Hi everyone,

Be warned I have been targeted by a nasty scam called Security Systems 2009. You may get a pop up telling you have a trojan virus aka spyware. Then it tells you to download a programme which looks like a legitimate windows programme to get rid of it . I did it but it infected my whole computer . Every conceivable way of getting shot of it was tried. There was 2 ways out one was to pay up $79 S S 2009 demanded to unlock everything or wipe the hard drive using a special disk. I took the second nuclear option but had to loose all my files, photos going back 5 years at least. You have been warned. ********* off but at least I blasted the ***********. And it never got my $79 and who knows it may have not worked anyway.

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better option, and one that I use, is to have a copy of paragon drive backup express. it's free, and it makes a compressed copy of your HD, better to have an USB HD to put the copy on, then if you get a virus, or system corruption you can at least restore your compute back to the last image you created. If you do that weekly, or monthly you only loose limited amount,, and its quick.

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Spybot S&D - safer-networking.org.uk - will remove Security Systems 2009 (and pretty much any other malware, for that matter) and is completely free.

Unfortunately, the threat that SS2009 has ""locked your hard drive"" is, it seems, as much of a fraud as the program itself. In truth, SS2009 doesn't do anything other than attempt to milk $79 from anyone who pays for it. There is certainly no need to wipe your hard drive and start again if you get infected.

The moral of this story? Never ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER click on any random pop-ups that appear - and certainly don't ever trust anything that they say.

[KateMoss]

Hello Katina!

Ouch!

Did the email specify a specific name of the virus , trojan or worm??

sometimes these can be hoaxes and persuade you to do things to your computer, such as remove a specific file that is key to the running of the computer or tell you to wipe the disk etc. So sometimes there is no threat, just someones idea of a cheap but devastating joke! I have tried to find info on Symantec / Norton but nothing has come up on this threat. ??

I never take any emails seriously that people pass on without looking at Symantec first.

Usually, if there is a serious threat, it will be in the national media.

Hope your Father's computer is restored.

I always back up onto a DVD... must get an external HD !

Kate

Update....

PS Thanks steve for clarifying it...............

PPS Spybot is very good!

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Might be worth Katina checking with her dad again, because from the reports that I've read, SS2009 doesn't use email scams as a way to get you to download the product - it relies on pop-up adverts whilst browsing.

If it *was* an email scam, then I'll report it because it would be a new way of distribution as far as this particular malware is concerned.

Excellent advice there, Kate. If you get a virus warning email, the first place to look is snopes.com - a website that is devoted to disproving (or proving) hoaxes of all kinds. Symantec probably doesn't have anything on this because it's not a virus - it does not send itself to other people from your computer. Do a Google search for ""System Security 2009"" and you'll find a fair old chunk of info.