My husband's desktop computer has fallen victim to a nasty virus/trojan thing. It bypasses the startup where you can opt for safe mode etc. then seems to start ok but then all the icons disappear and he gets a screen purporting to be from the police, demanding money to unlock the computer. He has disconnected his from the home hub and tried downloading rescue software on my laptop but so far no success. My computer is much newer and is not affected. Anybody come across this one?
It sounds familiar from past reading, but no I've not come across it personally.
Sounds to me as if you might need to scrub it clean from having booted from a CD or DVD. As I recall it was quite a nasty infection. Whatever you do don't connect the infected PC to any other computer by swopping disks from the infected one to a non-infected one, or any other way for that matter.
Yup, he's been looking at people doing things to each other!
To get rid, press F8 (or maybe F5 or F11) repeatedly on startup. Go into safe mode and then system restore.
Restore to an earlier point and it will be OK.
Next download Stinger from Mcafee (free to use) and it will seek and destroy the Trojan.
Then run Malaware bytes as a full scan to be sure.
It has worked for me a couple of times.
mjwman - perhaps you should have made it past the first sentence because the second one starts with It bypasses the startup where you can opt for safe mode etc...
First of all, I am not computer literate, however, I got a nasty virus and asked for help, and this worked for me.
Turn the computer OFF.
BEFORE (very important) turning it back on HOLD DOWN F4.
Turn the computer ON.
Boot manager should show. PRESS F8.
Use the up and down buttons to highlight SAFE MODE and press enter.
On your bottom left hand side, click on the windows flag, click on CONTROL PANEL, and click on SYSTEM RESTORE.
Then reset to an earlier time.
Download a free program called RKILL on to a usb stick from another computer which is not infected . Use it on the infected one from the outside and it will disable the malware from working which will then let your antivirus program remove the infection. I would use MalwareBytes to remove it . If you dont have it installed already download it on to a usb stick and run it from the outside like before.
Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to reply. Sadly nothing seems to work as it appears to be a combination of virus (scam police screen) and a trojan, which has affected and corrupted the BIOS. It looks as though we have to bid a fond farewell to his aged, steam-driven PC and invest in a new one. I wonder at the mentality of the people who create this malware, if only such energy and expertise could be channelled more usefully.