XP Internet Security 2010 rogue malware

General Image: 

One of the reasons I love Linux is not having to worry too much about security threats from viruses and malware. While there are malicious programs that run on Linux, we rarely see systems infected like we do on Windows systems. Some of the malware on Windows is downright nasty! XP Internet Security 2010, pictured above, is an example of a moderately nasty piece of malware. It pretends to be an antivirus program, but is in fact malware.

Removing XP Internet Security 2010 isn't as simple as just running an anti-malware program, some registry fixes have to be done in order to reassociate damaged exe files. There are a number of sites out there that recommend how to remove XP Internet Security 2010, I found the intructions on MyAntiSpyware worked for me. I had to scan the computer a couple of times after with Malware Bytes. The malware is so pervasive that I found Malwarebytes just seems to disable it. A scan with AVAST found the av.exe file still resided in a temporary directory. Avast did appear to remove it when I ordered AVAST to.