My Daddy came in all excited about an incident he heard about,

where an elderly couple were killed in a Florida home invasion.

Daddy, being elderly and all, wanted more information. Me being co-dependent (and online at the moment,) Googled “home invasion murder elderly couple florida 2009″.

The first return linked to an Italian-sounding URL: http://www.gabineteorellana.com/ but the text was right

FLORIDA COUPLE KILLED
Jul 13, 2009 … Pregnant Woman, Baby Killed in Florida Home Invasion, . … Up to 8 People Involved in Murder of Florida Couple With 16 Kids

And I so wanted to please Daddy, so I clicked it (Google being so reliable and all). I was immediately taken to securefolderscannerv6.com where Personal Antivirus took over. Confusing pop-ups told me “Windows Web Security” found malicious software. I should download a program. Do I want to download it? No? “Don’t close this window if your want you PC to be protected”[sic]. Close the window. Do I want to cancel? Yes? If you really don’t want to cancel click OK. OK? Oops. Not Ok. Stop. Help. Rinse and repeat.

Thanks to BleepingComputer.com Personal Antivirus is :

. . . a rogue anti-spyware created by company named Innovagest 2000 and is a clone of General Antivirus and Internet Antivirus Pro. This program is advertised through the use of Trojans that display fake security alerts on your computer. These alerts will contain messages stating that your computer is under attack or that malware has been detected running on your computer. When you click on these alerts, Personal Antivirus will be installed on your computer and automatically be configured to run when you start Windows. When running, it will scan your computer and display a variety of infections that cannot be removed unless you first purchase the program. In reality, though, these infections are all fake and are only be shown to scare you into purchasing the program.

Removing it is not simple. Here’s how.

A friend once got suckered into installing this POS and paid a local repair company $150 to remove the trojan. Gosh. Too bad. Local PC repair company discovered he hard drive was failing. She needed a $300 external drive and a forensic repair to move her data to it (including the Trojan, as it so happens).