How Do I Remove A Malicious Defender Virus?

This is a fake virus, one that is a hoax virus written by the unscrupulous to extort money from the unwary. Your AV will not detect nor remove this thief virus from your computer, it is a manual job you will need to do.

You may or may not have had one, if you have you know how it works, if you haven't here is the modes operandi:

You go to a web site of dubious reputation ether from an email link (I have warned about those, do not click on links in spam emails!) or a link on a web site that has some enticing ad or information.

All the sudden you are getting warnings about security problems on your computer, when you try to use the Task Manager it will not run, when you try to use your trusty anti virus it will not run, as a last resort you try to open the registry editor - it will not run either.

Note You can try using the Safe Mode (which I advocate for virus removal) but the program will lock you out of the Task Manager and the registry editors.

Next you get a pop up saying that you can clean your computer of this annoying virus by going to a web site and paying for the cure.

This is the Malicious Defender virus.

You can do the normal shut down, go in to Safe Mode, start cleaning, but these things are very persistent as pointed out in an article by one of the authors of the old PCMech.com. A long, arduous, and needless task of cleaning out a virus if you ask me.

I was hit by one of these a few years ago and here is how I took care of it: I wiped out the Malicious Defender Virus by putting my latest good image on the boot partition.

Troubleshoot, repair, maintain, upgrade & secure...     With this!

"Your recovery is only as good as your last backup!"

That includes your data and the image you have made of your boot partition. Viruses always embed themselves in the boot and system partition so the fastest way to kill it is to wipe it by overwriting the partition with an image.

Don't know how to make an image or do a data backup? It is in this Self Computer Repair Unleashed! 2nd Edition manual...

[My Rant]

I find it amazing that these idiots will put so much effort in to writing and then promoting their virus just to extort a few bucks. If they used the same amount of effort to create a useful product they would make more money than they ever dreamed of (such as Facebook, My Space, or Twitter) and would not face the charges of thief or extortion which when they are brought to justice which will mean they will be in jail for a long time. Yes they are idiots.

[End Rant]

Update 02/17/20 - After a check with my favorite anti Trojan web site this thing is still on the "Active" list and has morphed into what is called malware, the new versions will encrypt your hard drive (all partitions) and to get the key to decrypt the information you have to pay the thieves, sometimes big bucks! And some cities or businesses do pay... They should fire the exec's and the IT department before paying, if they were doing their job then the virus would not have gotten to the servers... My $0.00002 cents