Legit Reviews

Hey all...

just curious if anyone has gotten and recovered from this virus/trojan/malware? Virus Response 2009 or Virus Response Lab 2009. One of the worst I've faced in a long time. I was watching some videos last night, got a pop up that said "you don't have the proper codec installed to view this file", then, all hell broke loose. 5 new desktop icons, 8 new IE windows, and a virus "scanner" showed up in the time I could sit up in my chair and jerk the power cable out of the back of the system. I fought it for about 3 hours last night, and an hour so far tonight. I'm about to introduce it to my main man Edgar (Strongbad anyone?). If that doesn't work, reformat/reinstall will be filling the next 90 minutes of my life.

Sounds gross. I haven't had to mess with that one yet, but I've got a buddy's laptop coming to me tomorrow with something that sounds like that. This is probably the third or fourth time I've had to go through that stupid thing. Anyway, let us know how it goes.

Spybot had nothing for it. It was able to remove a few things, but the Security Center has been hijacked and I can't get it back.

I found a program that says it will remove everything... SpyNoMore, but it's $39.95. For that, I can reinstall windows and have a clean system.

It's in 34 different registry keys (now, I manually removed some last night), as well as embedded in IE and the Security Center. format C:/ FTW!

That sounds pretty ugly! Have you tried killing it from a bootable OS like PE or Knoppix?

naah, there's really nothing left to die. I've removed all files that were created 10 minutes either side of the infection. Manually removed 10-15 registry keys that were associated, and it's still there. Rather than waste more time getting pissed off, I'll just take the easy way out and reformat.

There is always that

Stupid question, but did you google it? Seems like there are a couple of removal guides out there.

Is it a virus or spyware? I have norton for firewall and virus protection and I use spyware doctor for spyware.

yeah, most of the information on Google was ineffective. The registry keys listed in most of the guides didn't actually exist.

"VirusResponse Lab 2009 usually come up after you installed a video codec that come with Trojan, malware and virus." I haven't used a Norton product since the demise following AV2001. I have used AVG Free since then and have had zero problems with it. The "virus" itself, is actually gone, though the malware had hijacked the Security Center tray icon. Accessing the Security Center via Control Panel worked perfectly, the only real remnants of the program are the pop up message on the Security Center shield in the systray.

Go download malwarebytes at
www.malwarebytes.org

run it and it will completely get rid of it. Got the virus today and the utility completely removed it

tolegittoquit wrote:Go download malwarebytes at
http://www.malwarebytes.org

run it and it will completely get rid of it. Got the virus today and the utility completely removed it

I tried a couple of solutions, and finally gave up. I keep all my important data on my server, so I can back up everything on this machine, reinstall windows and be back up and running in 2 hours tops, so I went that route. nothing quite as refreshing as a clean windows install anyway.

I just recently looked at a friends laptop, ive got no idea what he was doing, but he got this virus, that just started downloading all this gay porn onto his pc, i managed to delete all of that but i was unable to completely restore his pc, so i just formatted after saving what i could. Stupid viruses

kappage wrote:I just recently looked at a friends laptop, ive got no idea what he was doing, but he got this virus, that just started downloading all this gay porn onto his pc, i managed to delete all of that but i was unable to completely restore his pc, so i just formatted after saving what i could. Stupid viruses

You sure it was a virus?

Dan

well it wasnt my pc so it is kinda hard to tell

you should ask my dad Darkstar i had something like that and he fixed it but he was mad.

Brother in law called me last night with the same thing, different name.

XP Antispyware 2009.

hi guys has anyone had success in getting rid of this??

i've picked it up last night and it is a b*****d of a virus.

the biggest problem i'm having is i can't even get past the log in screen on windows xp. i click on my log in and it freezes saying "welcome. loading your personal settings"

i'm trying to run the computer in safe mode (don't know if that will even work) but i can't get to the screen to allow me to do it...

is there anyway i can re format the computer without logging onto xp??

any help would be appreciated??

what a pain in the arse this thing is....

Only way I was able to combat it was via Windows reinstall. I have seen a few sites that said they had success using Malwarebytes http://www.malwarebytes.org/index.php , and with 2 million downloads on Download.com, they must be doing something right. I didn't learn of this program until after I had reinstalled, so I can't attest to how well it works, but it was even mention on Systm with Patrick Norton.

As for reformatting without logging in to windows, you should be able to reinstall by booting from the CD. Doing so WILL result in a LOSS OF ALL DATA so be forewarned.

Good Luck.

Came accross this response from Microsoft.

http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal ... structions

Sparky wrote:Came accross this response from Microsoft.

http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal ... structions

That's a pretty standard answer that is spread across many sites regarding this infection. I was able to complete most of the steps listed, but the specific registry keys they reference were not on my system and thus this process didn't resolve the issue for me.

Hopefully the most recent poster can get logged in via safe mode and resolve the problem with one of the provided "solutions".

Nasty stuff, huh? Oh well, hopefully I'll never run accross it. Were you guys running any antivirus or antispyware programs before getting the infection? If so which one(s)?