I've worked on a few of these fake AV's on friend's PC's. These run bogus scans and tells you that you have bunches of malware that is infecting your machine. It prevents you from going to websites to get cleaning software. Prevents your legitimate AV from updating. Turns your Automatic Updates off. Gives you the fake Microsoft Windows Security Shield and tells you that you need to activate whatever the current name of AV that is installed on your PC. Some give you fake BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). Popups take over your PC. Your browser is hijacked.
It goes by many different names. Total Protect 2009, eXPress Antivirus 2009, iSafe 2009 (Sounds like an Apple application), Antivirus 360, Perfect Defender 2009, and on and on and on. This is just some of the more recent fake AV's that have been plaguing PC's lately.
It's tough to remove this type of malware because it defends itself very well. The best thing is to not get the nasty stuff. The most common delivery method is social engineering. Tricking you into installing the malware yourself. Be wary of messages sent to you from friends on social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook, etc. A very effective way of propagating itself is once it is installed on a PC, any user of these social networking sites sends messages to all the friends on you list trying to trick your friends into installing this malware.
Stay safe. My Kansas University Jayhawks rocked the Insight Bowl earlier tonight 42 to 21 against Minnesota. Hope you had a safe and happy New Year!
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