Now that's insidious...
 

I just wasted my lunch break (and then some) on the phone playing computer tech support for my Dad.

He caught a nice case of this:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/viru...ctive-security

It's a fake virus scanner that is itself a virus. The best part: if you're dumb you can pay $90 for the opportunity to own the full licensed version of the virus! Luckily my Dad didn't get that far because he noticed the spelling errors in the fake virus warning messages and called me.

Unfortunately, the damn thing is smart enough to detect when you're downloading the anti-spyware programs that will get rid of it and it cancels the download before they complete. Fucking awesome. :unamused:

So, it looks like the next time I'm down to my parent's place, I get to hack at a crappy virus. I think I'll just format the bitch and reinstall windows.

A fresh install will make it faster anyway, if it's an older install.

However, MBAM is the shit. Can you mail him a CD with the installer on it and have him install it that way?

I think I had that or something very similar on my computer once. It disables your web browser so you can't download anti-virus programs but also prevents them from running if you already have them installed. I had to change the name of the mbam exe file for it to run. They are getting very tricky these days.

Ultimate Boot Disks/CDs. Either text, or Windows should be able to fix it if you don't want to reinstall. Or better yet, take your laptop and a USB case and clean it that way. Just an idea.