Christmas is coming and no doubt you are cleaning and tidying all ready for visitors? Well there’s an IT Christmas visitor we spoke about yesterday which might just be waiting to pop up.

It’s the cutely named  W97M/Pri.Q which on December the 25th will wipe your system, screw up your data and give you a happy Christmas message below:

Don’t blame the Muslim’s, it might be them or it might be someone who thinks they deserve all the blame – Don’t ask me to comment more.

Is your IT infected?

Only your computer knows the answer to that one, If it is then files will be changed and settings altered, the clock will be ticking and if you do nothing then watch out.

How did I get it?

You received an email probably telling  you that you had received a payment by BACS and the details were contained in a word document or excel spreadsheet attachment and then you opened the document. This then ran a macro, a small routine that disabled your security and anti-virus which started all the bad stuff that is loaded and ready to roll.

What can I do?  

Relax, it’s all OK, we or rather you can sort it all out easily, with our help. Make a backup ring us if you don’t know how, there are hundreds of ways of getting it wrong. Download the free version of Malwarebytes antimalware from www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware and install it. Be sure you have unchecked the trial / premium. Now run a scan using it. If it comes up with problems then you can fix them or ring us for advice. Go to either of the next sites and run a virus sweep. These have the latest detection methods and just download a small package without installing anything on your equipment. Its like having a remote PC smear test.

http://www.eset.co.uk/Antivirus-Utilities/Online-Scanner

(32 bit computers) http://go.trendmicro.com/housecall7/HousecallLauncher.exe

(64 bit computers) http://go.trendmicro.com/housecall7/HousecallLauncher64.exe

Either one is good or both is best. If it comes up clean then you can have a happier Christmas than you may have done.

What is the best anti-virus?

I can talk on this for hours. Basically at the moment ESET either the anti-virus or the Smart Security. Contact us about a free trial.

If you want to know more.

We did a complete page on everything that we do when we have a system to examine. It tells you what happens to an infected system and what to do. Why not subscribe to get all the topical blogs and if you want the latest news then we publish on Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. The links are on the main website, oh!, that link I mentioned is; How do we spring clean your computer for malware, viruses etc?    http://www.cmx.co.uk/blog/2014/06/9.html