SAS starts then stops

[scbs29]

Hello

I have set up my wifes laptop (NEC i_Select 5210) to dual boot with

PCLinuxOS and Win XP Home, which is the original OS. The laptop was

bought used with a single partition containing XP, and has no restore

partition, so restoring the original XP is not an option.

The XP partition has XP Home, fully updated, Avast anti-virus,

MalwareBytes and SuperAntispyware (full paid for version) for malware

detection, and Comodo firewall.

Up until 2 days ago (after about 2 years) I have had no trouble with

this XP setup at all, but suddenly I am experiencing problems.

On booting I get a message from SAS that it has detected and blocked a

potentially harmful application and gives me the option to find out

more about this app or to scan the system. Selecting either of these

has no effect, and SAS then stops running. If I then try to start SAS

the same thing happens. Also a few seconds after SAS closes, so does Comodo.

I have done a full system scan with Avast and Malwarebytes and downloaded the

portable version of SAS and did a full scan with that. In all cases no problems

were detected.

Neither Firefox nor IE will run, just showing a corresponding process

in task manager.

Can you advise ?

[Seth]

I'm thinking a benign corruption in XP, or malware such as a rootkit.

Have you tried a System Restore?

If that doesn't work, I'd run ComboFix from Safe Mode.

[SUPERAntiSpy]

What numeric version of SAS are you running?

[scbs29]

What numeric version of SAS are you running?

4.41.0.1000

I managed to get SAS to run in safe mode and it told me that I had Rogue.SecurityEssentials2010.

After it reported 753 instances I closed SAS and logged off.

After searching the internet for information about this rogue I was even more confused because

none of the files, registry entries or processes associated with it were present on the

laptop.

In the SAS folder, the .exe icons had been changed, overlayed with a sign so that they resembled

the Ghostbusters icon. I again did system checks with MalwareBytes, Portable SAS, GMER and Trojan_Killer

and received a clean bill of health.

I then uninstalled SAS and rebooted. This time all of the problems had disappeared. I then downloaded and installed

SAS 4.42.0.1000, updated and again ran SAS, MalwareBytes, and Trojan_Killer. I received a clean bill of

health from all of these.

From this I can only assume that SAS itself had become corrupted in some way. Have there been any more

reports of problems with 4.41.0.1000 ?

[siliconman01]

Sounds like you got caught as per the link below.

https://forums.superantispyware.com/index.php?/topic/4151-roguesecurityessentials2010-false-positive-issue/