Antivirus Protection 2012 is a rogue anti-spyware program from the Rogue.Zaxar family. This rogue displays fake scan results and alerts in order to scare you into thinking your computer is infected. This program is installed through Trojans that download and install the program on to your computer without your permission. When installed, the rogue will also create numerous harmless files in your Windows Temp folder that will then be detected as malware when Antivirus Protection 2012 attempts to scan your computer. If you attempt to use the program to remove any of the files it detects as infections, it will state that you need to purchase the program before you can do so. As all of the files it detects as infections are harmless or legitimate Windows files, please disregard the scan results and do not purchase the program.
Antivirus Protection 2012 screen shot
For more screen shots of this infection click on the image above.
There are a total of 7 images you can view.
While running, Antivirus Protection 2012 will also display fake security alerts on your computer. These alerts are designed to make you think that you have a severe computer infection or that your computer is sending private data to a remote location. The text of these alerts include:
Security Center
Unauthorized remote connection!
Your system is making an unauthorized personal data transfer to a remote computer!
Warning! Unauthorized personal data transfer is detected! It may be your personal credit card details, logins and passwords, browsing habits or information about files you have downloaded.
To protect your private data, please click “Prevent Connection” button below.You have been infected by a proxy-relay trojan server with new and danger “SpamBots”.
You have a computer with a virus that sends spam.
This is a mass-mailing worm with backdoor thus allowing un-authorized access to the infected system.
It spreads by mass-mailing itself to e-mail addresses harvested from the local computer or by querying on-line search engines such as google.com.
The IP <ip address> address that YOU are getting from Internet Service Provider (ISP) for YOU personal computer is on some major blacklist.
Your computer has been used to send a huge amount of junk e-mail messages during the last days.
You IP <ip address> will be marked in the Police log file as mass-mailing spam assist.
Upgrading to the full version Antivirus Protection 2012 it will eliminate the majority of Spam attempts.Antivirus Protection 2012
Your computer is being used as spamming machine. You can get sued for spam. Your computer WIL BE DISCONNECTED FORM <sic> INTERNET BECAUSE SPAMMING OTHER PCs.
Security Center Alert
To help protect your computer, Security Center has blocked some features of this program.
Do you want to block this suspicious software?
Name: Sft.Dez.Wien
Risk: High
Last, but not least, when you attempt to run the wordpad.exe, mspaint.exe, winword.exe, excel.exe, msaccess.exe, powerpnt.exe, firefox.exe, opera.exe, or wmplayer.exe executables, this infection will close the program and display a fake message stating that the program is infected:
Antivirus Protection 2012
The application excel.exe was launched successfully but it was forced to shut down due to security reasons. This application infected by a malicious software program which might present damage for the PC. It is highly recommended to make a full scan of your computer to exterminate the malicious programs from it.
Just like the fake scan results, all of these alerts and the browser hijacking are fake and are only being shown to scare you into purchasing the program.
Without a doubt, this program was developed to scare you into thinking that your computer has a serious computer security problem so that you will then purchase it. Therefore, do not purchase Antivirus Protection 2012 for any reason, and if you already have, please contact your credit card company and state that the program is a computer virus and a scam and that you would like to dispute the charge.