Personal Protector is a rogue anti-spyware program that is promoted through fake online scanners and aggressive advertising. When installed, Personal Protector will be configured to start automatically. Once started it will scan your computer and state that there are a variety of infections on your computer, but will not remove them until you first purchase the program. In reality, these scan results are all fake or are legitimate programs being classified as infections. Therefore, please do not act upon any of the scan results that this program shows you as you may delete legitimate Windows files.

 

Personal Protector screen shot
For more screen shots of this infection click on the image above.
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If you are infected with Personal Protector, please do not purchase this program based on what it says. If you have already purchased it, then we suggest you contact your credit card company and dispute the charges. Last, but not least, to remove Personal Protector and any related malware, please follow the steps in the removal guide below.

 

Threat Classification:

• Information on Rogue Programs & Scareware

 

Advanced information:

View Personal Protector files.
View Personal Protector Registry Information.

 

Entries for this program found in the Uninstall Programs control panel:

Personal Protector

 

Tools Needed for this fix:

• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

 

Symptoms that may be in a HijackThis Log:

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [personalprotector] C:\Program Files\Personal Protector\personalprotector.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\RunOnce: [suicide] C:\WINDOWS\tempfile2.bat

 

Guide Updates:

11/16/09 - Initial guide creation.

 

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Automated Removal Instructions for Personal Protector using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware:

 

1. Print out these instructions as we will need to close every window that is open later in the fix.
   
   
2. Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, or MBAM, from the following location and save it to your desktop:
   
   Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Download Link (Download page will open in a new window)
   
   


3. Once downloaded, close all programs and Windows on your computer, including this one.
   
   
4. Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe. This will start the installation of MBAM onto your computer.
   
   
5. When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and when the program has finished installing, make sure you leave both the Update Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes Anti-Malware checked. Then click on the Finish button.
   
   
6. MBAM will now automatically start and you will see a message stating that you should update the program before performing a scan. As MBAM will automatically update itself after the install, you can press the OK button to close that box and you will now be at the main program as shown below.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. On the Scanner tab, make sure the the Perform full scan option is selected and then click on the Scan button to start scanning your computer for Personal Protector related files.
   
   
8. MBAM will now start scanning your computer for malware. This process can take quite a while, so we suggest you go and do something else and periodically check on the status of the scan. When MBAM is scanning it will look like the image below.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. When the scan is finished a message box will appear as shown in the image below.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   You should click on the OK button to close the message box and continue with the PersonalProtector removal process.
   
   
10. You will now be back at the main Scanner screen. At this point you should click on the Show Results button.
    
    
11. A screen displaying all the malware that the program found will be shown as seen in the image below. Please note that the infections found may be different than what is shown in the image.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    You should now click on the Remove Selected button to remove all the listed malware. MBAM will now delete all of the files and registry keys and add them to the programs quarantine. When removing the files, MBAM may require a reboot in order to remove some of them. If it displays a message stating that it needs to reboot, please allow it to do so. Once your computer has rebooted, and you are logged in, please continue with the rest of the steps.
    
    
12. When MBAM has finished removing the malware, it will open the scan log and display it in Notepad. Review the log as desired, and then close the Notepad window.
    
    
13. You can now exit the MBAM program.
    

Your computer should now be free of the PersonalProtector program. If your current anti-virus solution let this infection through, you may want to consider purchasing the PRO version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to protect against these types of threats in the future.

If you are still having problems with your computer after completing these instructions, then please follow the steps outlined in the topic linked below:

Preparation Guide For Use Before Using Malware Removal Tools and Requesting Help

 

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Associated Personal Protector Files:

c:\Program Files\Personal Protector
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\base.wdb
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\baseadd.wdb
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\conf.wcf
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\personalprotector.exe
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\quarant.wdb
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\queue.wdb
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\un.exe
c:\Program Files\Personal Protector\q
c:\WINDOWS\tempfile2.bat
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Microsoft PData
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Microsoft PData\inetprovider.dll
%UserProfile%\Desktop\Personal Protector.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Protector
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Protector\Personal Protector.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Protector\Uninstall.lnk

File Location Notes:

%UserProfile% refers to the current user's profile folder. By default, this is C:\Documents and Settings\<Current User> for Windows 2000/XP, C:\Users\<Current User> for Windows Vista/7/8, and c:\winnt\profiles\<Current User> for Windows NT.

 

Associated Personal Protector Windows Registry Information:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Printers\DevModePerUser
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Printers\DevModePerUser
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Personal Protector
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Personal Protector
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "personalprotector"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce "suicide"

 

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BleepingComputer.com can not be held responsible for problems that may occur by using this information. If you would like help with any of these fixes, you can ask for malware removal assistance in our Virus, Trojan, Spyware, and Malware Removal Logs forum.

If you have any questions about this self-help guide then please post those questions in our Am I infected? What do I do? and someone will help you.