How to remove WinPC Defender

Posted by Lawrence Abrams on March 17, 2009 @ 04:38 PM · Views: 139,258

 

What this infection does:

WinPC Defender is a new rogue anti-spyware program discovered by security analyst S!Ri and is a clone of the programs named XP Police Antivirus and IE Security. Like its predecessors, this program is installed and advertised through the use of Trojans that display fake security alerts on your computer. These security alerts state that your computer is infected and that you should click on them in order to download software that will protect you. Once you click on these alerts, the Trojan will automatically download and install the program on your computer.

 

WinPC Defender screen
For more screen shots of this infection click on the image above.
There are a total of 9 images you can view.

 

When WinPC Defender is installed it will scan your computer and display a variety of infections that cannot be removed unless you purchase the program. These infections, though, do not actually exist on your computer. Instead WinPC Defender is programmed to always show the same scan results regardless of the computer it is run on. It does this in order to scam you into thinking that you are infected and hoping that you will purchase the program in order to remove the infections. When S!Ri was testing this rogue he had registered his copy of the program to see if even the registered version would remove these so-called infections. Even when the program was registered, it still would not remove any of the infections and continued to state that your computer was infected.

A byproduct of this program running on your computer is an endless barrage of false warnings and Internet Explorer hijackings. These alerts are programmed to stay on top of your desktop so that if you have any running applications you need to close the alerts before you can get back to the screen you were working on. Even more annoying is that when you close these alerts you will then have to wade through a bunch of "Are you sure?" screens before the alert will close. The alerts that we saw when testing included a Firewall Warning and a Trojan alert. The text of these alerts are:

Trojan detected!
A piece of malicious code was found in your system which can replicate itself if no action is taken. Click here to have your system cleaned by WinPC Defender

Firewall Warning
Hidden file transfer to remote host was detected.

This program, in addition to the nag screens, will hijack your Internet Explorer browser so that it randomly shows a warning when you are browsing the web. While browsing the web, you may be shown a Insecure Internet Activity. Threat of virus attack screen, instead of the page you are trying to browse to. This screen will contain an option to continue to the page or purchase WinPC Defender. Regardless of the choice you select, you will still be brought to the purchase page for this program.

As you can see, this program has only one purpose and that is to trick you into thinking you are infected so that you purchase it. Please ignore any warnings that this program may display and instead use the free removal guide below to remove WinPC Defender and any associated malware.

 

 

Threat Classification:

• Information on Rogue Programs & Scareware

 

Advanced information:

View WinPC Defender files.
View WinPC Defender Registry Information.

 

Tools Needed for this fix:

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

 

Symptoms that may be in a HijackThis Log:

O2 - BHO: IEocx Class - {96ad72e4-2e2b-4ffc-a5bb-279c2714af12} - C:\WINDOWS\ieocx.dll
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [sysav] %UserProfile%\Application Data\pcdefender.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Content] C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Ta1HnnaIasEcfgF.exe

 

Guide Updates:

03-17-09 - Initial guide creation.
05-04-09 - Updated for new registry entries.

 

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Automated Removal Instructions for WinPC Defender using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:

 

1. Print out these instructions as we may need to close every window that is open later in the fix.
   
   
2. It is possible that the infection you are trying to remove will not allow you to download files on the infected computer. If this is the case, then you will need to download the files requested in this guide on another computer and then transfer them to the infected computer. You can transfer the files via a CD/DVD, external drive, or USB flash drive.
   
   
3. Before we can do anything we must first end the processes that belong to WinPC Defender so that it does not interfere with the cleaning procedure. To do this, please download RKill to your desktop from the following link.
   
   RKill Download Link - (Download page will open in a new tab or browser window.)
   
   When at the download page, click on the Download Now button labeled iExplore.exe download link. When you are prompted where to save it, please save it on your desktop.
   
   
4. Once it is downloaded, double-click on the iExplore.exe icon in order to automatically attempt to stop any processes associated with WinPC Defender and other Rogue programs. Please be patient while the program looks for various malware programs and ends them. When it has finished, the black window will automatically close and you can continue with the next step. If you get a message that RKill is an infection, do not be concerned. This message is just a fake warning given by WinPC Defender when it terminates programs that may potentially remove it. If you run into these infections warnings that close RKill, a trick is to leave the warning on the screen and then run RKill again. By not closing the warning, this typically will allow you to bypass the malware trying to protect itself so that rkill can terminate WinPC Defender . So, please try running RKill until the malware is no longer running. You will then be able to proceed with the rest of the guide. If you continue having problems running RKill, you can download the other renamed versions of RKill from the rkill download page. All of the files are renamed copies of RKill, which you can try instead. Please note that the download page will open in a new browser window or tab.
   
   Do not reboot your computer after running RKill as the malware programs will start again.
   
   
5. Now you should 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)
   
   


6. Once downloaded, close all programs and Windows on your computer, including this one.
   
   
7. Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe. This will start the installation of MBAM onto your computer.
   
   
8. 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. If MalwareBytes' prompts you to reboot, please do not do so.
   
   
9. 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.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. 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 WinPC Defender related files.
    
    
11. 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.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. 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 WinPCDefender removal process.
    
    
13. You will now be back at the main Scanner screen. At this point you should click on the Show Results button.
    
    
14. 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.
    
    
15. 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.
    
    
16. You can now exit the MBAM program.
    
    
17. As many rogues and other malware are installed through vulnerabilities found in out-dated and insecure programs, it is strongly suggested that you use Secunia PSI to scan for vulnerable programs on your computer. A tutorial on how to use Secunia PSI to scan for vulnerable programs can be found here:
    
    How to detect vulnerable and out-dated programs using Secunia Personal Software Inspector

 

Your computer should now be free of the WinPCDefender 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 WinPC Defender Files:

%UserProfile%\Application Data\pcdefender.exe
%UserProfile%\Desktop\WinPC Defender.LNK
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\WinPC Defender.LNK
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Ta1HnnaIasEcfgF.exe
c:\WINDOWS\ieocx.dll

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, and c:\winnt\profiles\<Current User> for Windows NT.

 

Associated WinPC Defender Windows Registry Information:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinPC Defender
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{39fc2065-c9c7-49cd-8942-44cc2dedc844}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{96ad72e4-2e2b-4ffc-a5bb-279c2714af12}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\IEocxApp.IEocx
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\IEocxApp.IEocx.1
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{4B66E1DF-4DE3-4CDA-83B5-11673EADAB0B}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{9692BE2F-EB8F-49D9-A11C-C24C1EF734D5}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{A54DC52D-7AAD-4D40-A126-337211631EDC}
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{96ad72e4-2e2b-4ffc-a5bb-279c2714af12}
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{39fc2065-c9c7-49cd-8942-44cc2dedc844}
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\don't load "scui.cpl"
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\don't load "wscui.cpl"
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "sysav"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "Content"