A friend has been on my PC and ever since, a bubble keeps appearing in the system tray, constantly telling me that there is some type of infection, trojan or that someone is trying to pass on my credit card details.
I never downladed anything, and cant find it in my add\remove programmes.
I think it must be dodgy and just wants me to register or pay them something. Any thoughts on how I can get rid of it.
I'm running the AVGantivirus at the moment and something has come up stating 'virus found Win32/Heur C:\Documents and Settings\HP_owner\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iv.exe'
Can I just go and delete this, or would this stuff my machine.
Internet Anti-virus Pro is a scam to infect your PC. Win32/Heur is a problem file. The reason that you can not find these files in Add/Remove Programs is because they know how to hide.
AVG has been a very disappointing piece of free Anti-Virus software. You really need to be able to do a boot time scan with your AV program. My first suggestion would be to remove it from your computer and install Avast. Avast is also free and you may download it from here: http://avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
With Avast you may tell it to do a boot time scan, which you will need to do. However, the first thing you must do is register the program. After you register it, they will e-mail you a registration key. Start Avast and enter the registration key. Remember that the home version is free.
Avast will do a boot time scan after you reboot the computer, but before you do that, I would like for you to run the following applications.
Spybot Search & Destroy Link to download version 1.6.0 I personally do not do everything after the installation. You will however need to ensure that you get the updates for the program. After you have the updates let the program run. Some people like Tea-Timer, but I find it annoying. It is however a nice little program to have if you do not have a nice firewall installed on your PC.
The next thing that you will need to do is clean your registry. There are two programs that I like for this and both are free. One is CCleanerLink for download Download from FileHippo.com. It will give you the option to save your current registry settings before cleaning it. Please do so. I also suggest that you run both the registry cleaner and the standard cleaner until it finds no additional objects to remove. You only need to make the registry backup the first time, and you will most likely not even need to use it. I have never had a problem with CCleaner.
The other option you may select for cleaning the registry is RegSeeker. It is also free and you may download it here: RegSeeker Link
The next program that I suggest you run is A-Squared Free 4. It is also a free piece of software that works very well. A-Squared Free Link
Run complete cleaning with all of these utilities and after you are done reboot the computer. Avast will not do a boot time scan. Remove all that it finds. Some may and will be in the System32 file. In most cases it is dangerous to remove these files. If you have another computer to search the particular items that it finds, you may do so. If not, then you may write down the items to search for after the scan is finished.
You may list here any items that it found that you are not sure about removing. Give the exact location, for example C:\Documents and Settings\user name\trojan name or file name. This makes the search much easier on me. If the item is residing in the System32 file I will know if it is a valid program or dll file.
Good luck and post back with any and all results that you find.
