How to remove XP Police Antivirus (Removal Guide)

Posted by Grinler on January 26, 2009 @ 11:23 PM · Views: 16,528

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What this programs does:

XP Police Antivirus is a new program that attempts to deliberately trick you into thinking you are infected. It does this by displaying security warnings from your Windows taskbar, by displaying a fake Windows Security Center window, and by showing fake infections after scanning your computer. It is for these reasons that we categorize this program as a rogue anti-spyware program.

When XP Police Antivirus is installed on to your computer it will add an entry to your Windows registry so that the program starts automatically when you boot the computer. Once the program is loaded it will automatically scan your computer and list a large amount of infections. These infections, though, cannot be removed unless you first purchase XP Antivirus Police. This is a scam as the infections that are found do not actually exist on your computer. They are only being shown in order to scare you into thinking you are infected and hoping that you will purchase their software.

XP Police Antivirus screen shot
For more screen shots of this infection click on the image above.
There are a total of 9 images you can view.

While the program is running you may also encounter other undesirable behavior such as:

• When browsing the web in Internet Explorer you will randomly be shown a page stating that there was "Insecure Internet acitivity. Threat of virus attack". It will then prompt you to either purchase XP Police Antivirus or continue to the page you were requesting. Regardless of the answer you select, it will still open the purchase page for the rogue.
  
  
• Alerts pretending to be firewall alerts stating that your computer is sending hidden data to a remote computer.
  
  
• A fake Windows Security Center that states that "Windows Security center reports that 'XP Police Antivirus' is inable <sic>" and that you should purchase the software. This Window is just a fake and is not the actual Windows Security Center and should be ignored.
  
  
• A fake alert in the form of a small box appearing above your Windows taskbar stating that your computer is sending unauthorized information to random IP addresses.
  
  
• A small balloon alert stating that a Trojan was detected and that you should purchase XP Police Antivirus to protect yourself. The text of this alert is:
  

  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 XP Police Antivirus.
  

• Your computer beginning to act slower due to XP Police using up your computer's resources while performing the above actions.

If you encounter any of the above alerts, they should all be ignored as they are displaying false information. Instead please use the guide below to remove XP Police Antivirus program and any associated malware for free.

Threat Classification:

• Information on Rogue Programs & Scareware

Advanced information:

View XP Police Antivirus files.
View XP Police Antivirus Registry Information.

Tools Needed for this fix:

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

Symptoms that may be in a HijackThis Log:

O2 - BHO: WinSafe Class - {b6b571fb-b71d-449c-ad70-82e966328795} - C:\WINDOWS\iehost.dll
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [PoliceAV] C:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\xppolice.exe

Guide Updates:

01/26/09 - Initial guide creation.
02/04/09 - Updated guide to include new fake alert and Internet Explorer Hijack.

Automated Removal Instructions for XP Police Antivirus 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
   
   


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 quick scan option is selected and then click on the Scan button to start scanning your computer for XP Police Antivirus 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 XP Police Antivirus 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 XP Police Antivirus 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 Posting A Hijackthis Log

Associated XP Police Antivirus Files:

c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\AVCoreFn.dll
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\bdconf.cfg
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Core.dll
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\setup.dat
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\xppolice.exe
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\ceva_dll.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\ceva_emu.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\ceva_vfs.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\ceva_vfs.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\cevakrnl.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\cevakrnl.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\cevakrnl.rvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\cookie.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\cran.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\cran.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\e_spyw.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\e_spyw.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\emalware.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\gvmscripts.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\hpe.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\java.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\mdx_97.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\mdx_97.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\mdx_w95.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\mdx_x95.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\mdx_xf.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\mobmalware.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\na.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\nelf.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\regarch.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\regscan.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\rup.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\sdx.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\sdx.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\unpack.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\unpack.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\vb0.dat
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\vb1.dat
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\vb2.dat
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\ve.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\ve.ivd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\Plugins\vedata.cvd
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\sounds
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\sounds\alert.wav
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\sounds\click.wav
c:\Program Files\XPPoliceAntivirus\sounds\fire.wav
%UserProfile%\Desktop\XP Police Antivirus.LNK
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\XP Police Antivirus.LNK

Associated XP Police Antivirus Windows Registry Information:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\XP Police Antivirus
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{b6b571fb-b71d-449c-ad70-82e966328795}