Curse You, Mercury Retrograde...

I'm typing this on the Little Black Critter whilst I await the results of a bootup virus scan on the Big Black Critter (a.k.a my regular desktop PC.) Spybot found a vaguely worrisome thing, and I've noticed an apparently harmless program that doesn't want to be deleted, so I figured it wasn't worth my while to ignore it.  After Spybot's done, I might give the thing a rest for a bit, then go in with Norton to be extra-sure the problem's resolved.

It started round about the time I last did a Quicktime update; a program called Personal Guard 2009 turned up, and kept turning up.  I haven't noticed any particular "issues" - slow runtimes, corrupted files, etc. - but when I delete a program I prefer it to stay deleted.  Hence today's long and tedious runs through spyware/malware filters and virus scans.

While the BBC was puttering away on that, I booted up the LBC, at which time I remembered that I'd been meaning to get a free antivirus software on this critter for some time. (I refuse to pay for two Norton subscriptions...) Well, no time like the present... Of course, the first thing it wanted to do was a bootup scan.

At least I got some sketching done whilst both computers scanned themselves.

Dang.  The BBC just finished Spybot's bootup scan, which claimed it rooted out the problem, and then Norton squashed something.  And now the BBC seems to think this "Personal Guard 2009" - which I did not download, at least not intentionally - is the default AV program, instead of Norton.  So I'm running a full Norton scan.

I so did not want to get this sucker in to a shop... part of my scanning obsession was that it was about time for me to back up my PC again. (I suppose it's a bad idea to back up files from a potentially infected computer... even if they're just image files, as that's what I'm most worried about losing at this point.)

Oh, well... part of the reason I got the LBC was for just such an emergency...

Here's hoping Norton does the trick.  If not, the LBC just found a site on Google with a removal tool - yes, Personal Guard 2009 is indeed spyware, and potentially malicious spyware at that.

Fingers and mousewires crossed....

UPDATE - Well, it's later the same night.  To cut a long, curse-laden story short, the BBC goes into the shop at the soonest convenience.  It still runs, but I am unable to permanently extract the malicious programs. (It got increasingly annoying the more I tried... and, evidently, it never did reset itself as the default antivirus; that's one of its popup windows, which mimics the Windows screen almost perfectly.) I tried three different spyware tools, and the only one that might have caught it - that "free removal tool" I mentioned - forgot to say that, yes, it may detect problems, but you have to pay a 30 buck subscription fee to get it to actually do anything about what it detected.  Nothing else came near it.  Norton doesn't seem to know it's there, but it seems to block several of its false popup windows.  My sister and I even tried the manual removal instructions, which did exactly nothing.  So unless the bugger went in and activated System Restore, we have no clue where it's hiding on the hard drive.  Just what the budget needed...

Oh, the title: Mercury's gone retrograde, which makes a great excuse for major technological problems.  The computer on the belt at work had trouble last week, and now my computer's been hit.  Keep an eye on your own electronic devices... it may come after you next...