Antivirus Smart Protection Removal Process (remove AntivirusSmartProtection)

Protect Yourself from Antivirus Smart Protection

- Remove rogue anti-spyware/anti-virus programs
- Prevent trojans, hijackers & other malware infections
- Use spyware helpdesk to resolve pesky malware

Start Your Scan Now to Detect Antivirus Smart Protection

Antivirus Smart Protection is rogue anti-virus program. Whilst it is advertised as being security software, it is, in fact, spyware and part of the FakeVimes family of rogue AV programs. Antivirus Smart Protection will display false security notifications as well as fake spyware scans with the aim of conning you into paying for the rogue anti-virus software. However, even this is not the full extent of this fake anti-spyware program’s illegal tricks. Antivirus Smart Protection is carefully designed to infect PC users and steal their personal information such as their credit cards numbers. For the security-compromised computer owner, this could result in identity theft.

How Does Antivirus Smart Protection Attack Your PC?

There are two main ways in which Antivirus Smart Protection works to infect your PC.

• Once installed, this rogue anti-virus program bombards the user with fake security alerts. Antivirus Smart Protection falsely shows that infections have been detected. The user is then made to believe that the only way of removing these ‘viruses’ is through providing a payment.
• Antivirus Smart Protection may use a Trojan to disable the Task Manager and prevent legitimate Windows programs from running on the PC. It is for this concerning reason and if you know it’s installed on your PC, we recommend the immediate removal of Antivirus Smart Protection.

How Did I Get Antivirus Smart Protection?

Antivirus Smart Protection is commonly installed onto a computer (knowingly or unknowingly) by one of the following methods:

• Illegal websites claim that Antivirus Smart Protection is actually an online anti-malware scanner and persuade unknowing users to install it. If you click on this type of link, you will be presented with a screen which pretends to be scanning your computer for viruses. The page will then falsely show that a number of viruses have been detected on the computer, and the user is instructed to buy Antivirus Smart Protection to remove these fake viruses.
• Antivirus Smart Protection can also be installed on a computer without the user’s knowledge. This occurs through Trojans which exploit security vulnerabilities in browsers and programs. A fake warning message will pop up on a user’s screen stating that the computer has viruses when it is, in fact, a Trojan infecting the computer and attempting to install Antivirus Smart Protection.

Antivirus Smart Protection is elaborately and maliciously designed so that it cannot be manually removed from your PC. Antivirus Smart Protection is also very similar to other fake security apps such as Smart Anti-Malware Protection and Malware Protection Center. It achieves this by saving random files on your PC so that you do not know which files should be deleted (because they are part of Antivirus Smart Protection) and which should remain (which are legitimate Windows files and needed for your computer to function normally).
All of Antivirus Smart Protection’s files must be removed from your computer. Otherwise, this malware will reinstall itself every time you restart your computer. You can use a legitimate anti-spyware program to remove Antivirus Smart Protection effectively. Antivirus Smart Protection is a nasty, complex piece of rogue anti-virus program which should be avoided at all costs.

Are you getting popups from Antivirus Smart Protection? Have you identified that you have Antivirus Smart Protection installed on your computer? Do you wish to remove Antivirus Smart Protection completely from your computer?

Why should you remove Antivirus Smart Protection?

If Antivirus Smart Protection resides on your computer, it can potentially damage your personal files or you may end up losing data stored on your system. Research has shown that Antivirus Smart Protection may have the ability to make your computer vulnerable to remote attacks which could result, initially, in loss of money, possibly identity theft, and, eventually, a painstaking Antivirus Smart Protection removal process.

How can you manually remove Antivirus Smart Protection

Manual removal of Antivirus Smart Protection may not be for everyone. Each manual Antivirus Smart Protection removal step must be followed delicately to completely remove all related files and registry entries from your computer. If you are unsure or have doubts about editing your system registry, then we recommend that you use the automatic Antivirus Smart Protection removal process.

Antivirus Smart Protection can be removed manually by following the steps below.

1. With all programs closed, click the Start Menu and go to the Control Panel.
2. Locate the Add/Remove Programs icon and double click it.
3. Locate Antivirus Smart Protection in the list of programs. If you find it, select it and remove it. If you cannot find Antivirus Smart Protection, you can continue to step 5.
4. Restart your computer.
5. Close all open programs and windows on your desktop.
6. Open your registry editor (regedit) program by going to Start Menu, type in regedit, and click OK.
7. Find all of the following registry entries and delete them. If you do not know how to do this, then you can read how to edit the registry in Windows.
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "Malware Protection Center" "%CommonAppData%\[RANDOM CHARACTERS]\[RANDOM CHARACTERS].exe" /s /d

8. You may need to return to this removal process for removing Antivirus Smart Protection. You can do this easily by bookmarking or adding a favorite to this page by clicking here. If you are using the FireFox web browser you can press the keys Ctrl and D simultaneously to bookmark this page.

   Image 1. Bookmark PCHubs removal process

   

9. Delete all of the following files that are associated with Antivirus Smart Protection from your computer.

   %AppData%\Antivirus Smart Protection\Instructions.ini

   %AppData%\Antivirus Smart Protection\ScanDisk_.exe

   %AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Antivirus Smart Protection.lnk

   %CommonAppData%\[RANDOM CHARACTERS]\ISG.ico

   %CommonAppData%\[RANDOM CHARACTERS]\[RANDOM CHARACTERS].cfg

   %CommonAppData%\[RANDOM CHARACTERS]\[RANDOM CHARACTERS].exe

   %Desktop%\Antivirus Smart Protection.lnk

   %Programs%\Antivirus Smart Protection.lnk

   %StartMenu%\Antivirus Smart Protection.lnk

   If you need a better understanding on how to search for these files then you can read how to find and search for files and folders here.

   If you have issues deleting any of the previously listed files that are associated with Antivirus Smart Protection, you can try rebooting your computer into safe mode. Booting into safe mode may allow certain malicious files to be deleted. If you are wondering how to boot into safe mode, you can read our process for starting a computer in safe mode here.

   Image 2. Select "Safe Mode with Networking"

   

10. After locating and deleting the previous files you must remove all directories associated with Antivirus Smart Protection by going to the C:\ProgramFiles\Antivirus Smart Protection folder, select it, and delete it. In some cases you may not be able to find this directory. You can still continue to the next step.

11. Restart your computer. You do not need to boot into safe mode at this point. You should have removed Antivirus Smart Protection completely from your computer. If you find that Antivirus Smart Protection is still on your computer, you can repeat the steps again or go to the automatic Antivirus Smart Protection removal process.