I just put up a new site in anticipation of the latest nuisance that I only recently came into contact with: “Antivirus 2010.” You can view the new site at removeantivirus2010.com, but be aware that it’s pre-release at the moment, which is why I haven’t done any SEO or cross-linking for it yet beyond this post.
Antivirus 2010 is the successor to the infamous beasts “Antivirus 2009″ and “XP Antivirus 2008.” The scammers behind these fake security programs have literally raked in hundreds of millions of dollars, and I’m quite sick of seeing them on our customers’ computers. The major problem with removing these kinds of beasties lies in their inner workings: they use rootkit tactics inside kernel-mode drivers loaded very early in the boot process to hide themselves from any and all anti-virus and anti-spyware solutions on the market. The loaded driver’s name always starts with the capitalized string “TDSS” and the older versions use “TDSSserv.sys” as the name. The ultimate problem is that there is no simple way to delete this driver because of the security manipulation done by this virus: the service registry key permissions are typically null, automatically meaning everything in Windows is denied access to it and successfully hiding it from programs like AutoRuns, StartupList, MSConfig, and HijackThis; furthermore, the virus hooks numerous key NT kernel system calls and “edits itself out of the list” whenever a directory listing or process list is requested by any program on the system, such as Task Manager, Windows Explorer, and even whatever antivirus solution you use.
Worst of all, it locks your system down like this even in safe mode, and its early boot loading means boot-time scanning solutions such as Avast’s can’t get rid of it either. It’s a truly clever little booger, immune from all your favorite security software.
Spybot can’t get it, nor Ad-Aware or Malwarebytes. We can get it all gone, but traditionally you had to call a very highly skilled and expensive local technician to get this stuff removed, because a clean boot environment is required as well as somewhat complicated knowledge about the inner workings of Windows and how viruses tend to slip up in the process of securing their presence on your system. Antivirus 2010 makes almost no mistakes, so you’re currently stuck either getting that expensive local tech or reinstalling.
Until now.
I’m currently writing software that will give Tritech access to a 100% clean environment remotely–free from viruses and spyware, which enables us to perform these horribly difficult virus removals remotely. The details will remain a secret, but suffice it to say that there are precisely zero computer service providers in the industry today that can perform this kind of service right now: the kind of custom software needed poses a significant barrier to entry, and the alternatives are so much easier and safer to rely on.
It’s revolutionary. Plain and simple. No one else we’ve found does anything like it. We’ve checked. Regardless of whether you need to remove Antivirus 2010, remove Antivirus 360, remove Antivirus 2009, remove SecurityCenter 2009, or remove any other disgusting infection, we’re rolling out a campaign that can get it done, regardless of your location. You don’t have to find a local tech and you don’t have to pay out the yin-yang.
Imagine getting this done wherever you are in the world, even if you’re in a hotel in Germany, and paying as little as $30 to have it done. Geek Squad charges a minimum of $199 (I really hate that whole “$999.99 can be advertised as under $1,000″ pricing scheme! GRR!!!) to do this in-store, and they don’t even offer over-the-internet virus and spyware removal. PlumChoice charges nearly $90 just to hop on their “SmartPlan,” and they can’t do what we do without an on-site appointment either. iYogi…well, if you think you’ll get this kind of quality and experience at their pricing level, you deserve what you get…they’re like a version of Dell’s Indian tech support that you actually pay money for, and you shouldn’t be supporting the iYogi Craigslist spammers anyway.
Bottom line: only Tritech Computer Solutions in Siler City, North Carolina, USA can remove difficult infections of viruses and spyware over the Internet. No one else does this, period.
(Edit: a commenter objected to this statement, indicating that it implies other remote computer service providers are ill-equipped to handle difficult virus infections. The distinction lies in the fact that no one that we have looked at currently does anything like what we’re rolling out; they certainly COULD do it, but they don’t; that’s why it says “no one else does this” instead of “no one else is capable of doing this.” What we’re rolling out is unique, and fills a niche currently worked around by hiring a local technician…which sort of negates the purpose of “remote computer support” in the first place. See comments on this post for more information.)
The only bad news is that this is still a work in progress. I’ll update this post when that changes, as well as post a new one. We’re looking to have this support platform completely up and running within about two weeks; more testing is necessary before release to ensure maximum reliability, but when this service of ours officially opens for business, it’s going to completely pull the rug out from under all of our competitors, and we can literally say that NO ONE ELSE does it. We’re truly one of a kind in this industry.
5 Comments
Bottom line: only Tritech Computer Solutions in Siler City, North Carolina, USA can remove difficult infections of viruses and spyware over the Internet. No one else does this, period.
thats a bold statement
There’s nothing “bold” about the truth. All the big shots in remote computer support world have one goal: turn around as many customer support requests as possible as quickly as possible, regardless of what that entails. The bottom line is that techs who have a decent working knowledge of how to fix common Windows issues such as Word crashing are very easily found and very easily replaced, because Windows is very common and minor computer enthusiasts and power users are a dime a dozen out there; this is why no other remote support provider will try something as “risky” and “dangerous” as what Tritech is working on. If I wanted ten Windows techs tomorrow, I could find them easily with just two or three posts online, but Windows viruses can’t always be removed from within Windows and that means that 100% of “Antivirus 2009″ infections are completely unfixable in a normal remote support session.
We’ve come up with a program that gets around that pesky little problem very nicely, which means we are the only remote support provider in existence that can fix these kinds of vicious malware infections remotely. Established businesses take far fewer risks because it’s much safer. We have the luxury of breaking that mold.
I agree with most of what you said. But “only” is indeed a bold claim to make. You are pretty much negating all the other people out there who spend time working out solutions for removing infections by saying they are all ill equipped to help anyone. There is a strong community of online resources as well as other “small” remote companies that can and will do the job. Good luck on all your endevors
I’m not saying other companies are ill-equipped to handle anything. I’m saying that no one else in the industry does specifically what we’ll be doing remotely: the niche is “worked around” by hiring local techs when the remote support session fails to solve the problem. What we’re looking at is clearly not a “safe” business move, and any sufficiently established business would be turned off by the risk. Locally, anyone with sufficient skills can remove pretty much any virus, but doing it remotely is another story entirely: you have to have a system outside of Windows, you have to penetrate the implicit firewall in a NAT router, you have to connect the customer to their Wi-Fi if they’re using wireless connectivity, and all of that’s merely prerequisite stuff to actually getting in there and rooting out the virus like you would normally do it on-site. We’re talking heavily customized and tested software as well as lots of technician training before such a campaign can “go live.” Why make the investment in that when on-site Windows techs are so easily found? For most businesses, it’s pointless (and possibly quite expensive) to even bother with what we’re trying to do.
That’s why companies like Gurus2go and OnForce (in a slightly different way) rise up as “middleman companies:” they can easily locate and hire some random tech or small computer service company in the area of the requesting customer, charge the customer a hefty fee (typically no less than $100 per visit and usually much more), and pay the tech a fairly small cut of that fee (OnForce regularly cranks out “junk jobs” with $45 spend limits, for example). The problem is that a middleman company is nothing more than a “finding service” that does something the customer could have done anyway. Tritech was originally going to be a “middleman, but better.” I realized the problems with that business model pretty quickly and abandoned it before I got in far at all. Middleman I.T. providers take a huge cut out of a qualified tech’s pay for doing nearly nothing, can’t reliably qualify nor control their technicians, and generally lower the pay and quality standards of the industry, indirectly giving actual techs a bad rep.
It’s a bit of a diversion from the original point, but it has a point in itself: it’s far easier and more reliable to use a proven business model relying on easily acquired techs than it is to pioneer in the field for potentially little to no gain. No one else that we have found does what we’re working on doing: it’s hard, it’s a risk, and it’s FAR easier to stick to what can be done in a LogMeIn or VNC remote session, so why would they? We’re willing to take on the risk and do the hard work, because the return on investment could be huge for us as a small business, and we’re small enough to take bigger leaps without getting burned too badly if it fails.
I’m really interested into where this goes, there is a computer at my school that got hit with Antivirus 2009, and there was absolutely nothing I or anyone else we talked to could do about it. We ended up reformatting, but who knows how many other computers got infected before the reinstall.
Good luck on writing your software!