How to Deal With Smit Fraud

"You have a virus!" If you've ever seen that message pop up on your PC and clicked on it, you may have become a victim of a new con game being played in cyberspace called "smit fraud." Basically this evil message takes you to a website where you can download, and pay for, antivirus software that does absolutely nothing. Here are a few things you can do to prevent that from happening.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Stay away from suspicious or fraudulent websites. Many of these sites will automatically download the smit fraud worm on your computer. Use a web fraud filter such as those provided by Symantec and McAffee to screen all websites.

2. Check your system tray for an icon you don't recognize. The smit fraud worm often shows up as an exclamation mark inside a white or grey circle that loads every time you boot up your computer. A message proclaiming you have a virus will constantly pop up and you won't be able to do anything except click on it and go to the fraudulent software's website.

3. Reboot your computer in safe mode and go to one of the websites listed in the resources section to download and install a smit fraud removal tool. Using only your antivirus software will most likely fail to remove the worm.

4. Click on the icon for the removal tool, follow the instructions and then reboot your computer.

5. Check to see if the icon in your system tray has been removed.

6. Use a PC cleanup utility, such as the one included with windows, to get rid of any remnants of data taking up space on your PC. Also use a registry editor to automatically check for and fix any errors it may find.

Resources

• Provides a free tool you can download to eradicate smit fraud and offers instructions on how to remove it manually.
• Several links to smit fraud removal tools.