FakeAlert-B : How to remove it

Oscar Sodani is a founder of Help2Go and owner of Help2Go Networks, an IT consulting firm in the Washington D.C. area. Oscar holds the CISSP certification as well as industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and Novell.

Does your system tray keep showing you a message that your computer is infected? Is McAfee warning you about FakeAlert-B ? It looks like you have the SpywareQuake trojan on your system.

You should bookmark or print this page before proceeding. 

SpywareQuake is a rogue spyware program. It's a scam. They are showing you false information about your system, all in the hope that you will purchase one of their garbage products. You probably see a pop-up that looks like this:

Step 1: Run SmitfraudFix

The first step is to download SmitfraudFix here. It's a ZIP file, so once it has downloaded, you will need to extract (unzip) it. (Click here if you're not sure how to unzip files).

The SmitfraudFix download site also offers instructions on how to use SmitfraudFix. Follow the instructions exactly.

Note: If you plan on getting help from our spyware removal experts in the Spyware Help Forum, do the following: After selecting Option 1 (Search) in SmitfraudFix and before selecting Option 2 (Clean), rename the rapport.txt file in your C:\ drive to report1.txt. That way, if the spyware fighters in our Spyware Help Forum ask you for those files for analysis, you will have them.

SmitfraudFix does an excellent job of removing most of the SpywareQuake / FakeAlert-B infection, however there is still more work to be done. Once it has finished, return to this tutorial and go through the next steps.

Step 2: Run Online Virus Scanners and HijackThis

Now run the Panda ActiveScan virus scanner and the Housecall virus scanner as detailed in Step 1 of our guide to Get Rid of Spyware, Adware, and Web Browser Hijackers. Only then can you be completely sure than your computer is clean from infection.

You should now be free of SpywareQuake, however, you may have additional spyware on your PC. These things tend to travel in packs ;) Go through the rest of the instructions in the Get Rid of Spyware guide to remove any other infections, and to protect your PC from future spyware.

If you have been referred to this Tutorial from the help forums:  please find the C:\rapport.txt file. Open it in notepad and copy & paste the contents in your next post in the forum.

More information about FakeAlert-B can be found on the McAfee web site. 

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