Search And Destroy Removal Instructions
Posted by Lawrence Abrams on March 5, 2008 @ 01:28 PM · Views: 3,384
What this infection does:
Search And Destroy is a a rogue antispyware program from the same family as MalwarePro. When installed, Search And Destroy will scan your computer and list a large amount of threats on that can not be removed unless you first purchase a license of the software. These threats, though, are all false positives being deliberately used to scare you into thinking your infected. In reality the majority of infections shown do not even exist on your computer. Instead the list in the scan result is pre-programmed to be shown regardless of what is installed on your computer.
A screen shot of the Search And Destroy program and a false positive can be found below.
Search And Destroy and one of its False Positives
This guide will walk you through removing the Search And Destroy program.
Threat Classification:
Advanced information:
View Search And Destroy files.
View Search And Destroy Registry Information.
Entries for this program found in the Add or Remove Programs control panel:
Search And Destroy
Tools Needed for this fix:
Symptoms that may be in a HijackThis Log:
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [SearchAndDestroyMFC] C:\Program Files\Search And Destroy\Search And Destroy.exe
Guide Updates:
02/24/08 - Initial guide creation.
Automated Removal Instructions for Search And Destroy using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
- Print out these instructions as we will need to close every window that
is open later in the fix.
- 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)
- Once downloaded, close all programs and Windows on your computer, including
this one.
- Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe.
This will start the installation of MBAM onto your computer.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Search And Destroy
related files.
- 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.
- 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 SearchAndDestroy removal process.
- You will now be back at the main Scanner screen. At this point you should
click on the Show Results button.
- 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.
- 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.
- You can now exit the MBAM program.
Your computer should now be free of the SearchAndDestroy 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
Associated Search And Destroy Files:
c:\WINDOWS\Search And Destroy
c:\WINDOWS\Search And Destroy Setup Log.txt
c:\WINDOWS\Search And Destroy\uninstall.exe
c:\Program Files\Search And Destroy
c:\Program Files\Search And Destroy\Search And Destroy.exe
c:\Program Files\Search And Destroy\Uninstall\IRIMG1.JPG
c:\Program Files\Search And Destroy\Uninstall\IRIMG2.JPG
c:\Program Files\Search And Destroy\Uninstall\IRIMG3.JPG
c:\Program Files\Search And Destroy\Uninstall\uninstall.dat
c:\Program Files\Search And Destroy\Uninstall\uninstall.xml
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\Search And Destroy.lnk
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Search And Destroy
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Search And Destroy\Search And Destroy.lnk
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Search And Destroy\Uninstall Search And Destroy.lnk
Associated Search And Destroy Windows Registry Information:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MPMFC1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Search And Destroy5.2
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "SearchAndDestroyMFC"
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