Trojan.fakealert.5 virus on BitDefender 2010
UPDATE: Raluca from BitDefender has posted a comment at this link with more details on how you can fix this problem.
Today, BitDefender 2010 users received an update that brings up a fake trojan.fakealert.5 error and falsely detects safe files as viruses. This problem only occurs on those that are using 64-bit operating systems with the 64-bit version of BitDefender 2010.
Fix Trojan.fakealert.5 problem
The BitDefender company is working on fixing the trojan.fakealert.5 problem. They have made a post on their support forums mentioning that they will be issuing an automatic update as soon as they can.
If you were affected by this update, let us know in the comments. Feel free to post any solutions to fix this problem as well.
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109 Comments
very unhappy with this situation… had this problem in the morning bitdefender started quarantine to everything it was scanning… then couden’t boot the computer couldent repair also.. had to reinstall everything, jsut finished now, and i am considering if i should continue to trust bitdefender, in my opinion bitdefender after verifying the problem should have acted faster to inform their customers…!
Happened to me today and I had to restore my computer in windows 7. How in the world could a company does not test this prior to release. I spent 6hrs repairing this issue…Very Pissed and all we get is Sorry. By Bitdefender, I will not be renewing my licence…
this happened to me this morning too but i use defender pro 15-1.
It was last night and I can’t imagine how can so many files be affacted so sudden by a troyan. Now i just don’t know whether I can boot my pc after i shut it down. I won’t trust BD any more.
Unbelievable that a company like BitDefender deploys updates in such un-professional manner, causing OS-failures and data loss to their customers.
Very annoying that my clients who purchased BD on my advise, are now stuck with this problem. They have to spend hours and hours of ICT support for system restoring and they suffer data loss in some cases.
We won’t renew the BD licences and advise clients nót to buy or renew BitDefender anymnore.
I was hit by this bug 2, i was angry , but realized why i use bit defender, it still is the best antivirus in the world, and there for i will continue to use them
Long trust worthy BD turned me down….. :(
Same for me, spent the better part of 24 hours trying to get this sorted, took numerous startup repairs to even get the PC to boot.. The KB article suggests it only marks a few Windows and BitDefender DLLs as infected but I have a list of over 100 – basically anything it could find with a .DLL or .EXE extension – Have just downloaded the fix – will give that a go and then try restoring the files from quarantine..
I was amongst the unlucky lot who experienced this rather irritating and damaging ‘virus’. It just goes to show that even with antivirus software and very good security measures your pc is never entirely safe (I was in total shock when the false positives started to pop up since I haven’t experienced a virus in over 5 years)! I can only hope that bit defender offers some sort of compensation for the matter; luckily being quite computer literate, I managed to restore my computer and install the update manually without any overall harm, however there’s not a chance that an inexperienced user would be able to do this! When you detect a virus the normal thing to do is scan your computer with your antivirus, that’s why this has caught so many people out! Just to recap the solution for anyone who is not sure as to what to do:
1) Disable real-time protection immediately and stop any scan in progress.
2) If you have a restore point, try and restore your computer to a previous date. It is important that once you do this you should disable automatic updates and manually install the most recent update or simply disable real time protection and auto-update.
3) If you cannot start your computer, do not panic and format your hard-drive! Simply try and find a recovery disk or use the inbuilt function if available (windows 7 offers an inbuilt recovery boot method which allows for basic diagnostic and more important the ability to restore your computer to previous points, just press F8 on boot.
4) Hopefully you should now be able to access your system; the current official fix will not restore quarantined files, however most people are quite fortunate since windows will restore essential system files if they have been removed.
5) The very unlucky few who have their antivirus set on auto-delete for all viruses may suffer greatly. If you are in this position there is little you can do apart from minimize the damage as much as possible by following the above steps and trying to restore/use any backups of essential files. It seems that document files are not effected.
Now, although bit defender are trying to cover themselves, they’re in a lot more trouble than they may assume. Their previous reputation has been greatly damaged by this and I imagine many customers will be put off by this freak event. It seems odd why the update wasn’t fully tested, however I’ll wait for an official statement to decide upon what to do. It’s worth noting that bit defender (when not deleting/quarantining your files) is one of the best anti-virus/firewall suites out there! It just give us all a lesson to ensure that backups are made of important files and that measures are put in place for such events. If this was a real virus outbreak, many people would suffer a far greater fate! I’m fairly impressed with the quick response that the bit defender team made so I reckon I’ll stick with them for a bit. I’m not entirely happy by any means but I’m interested as to how this could have happened! Hope everyone who experienced this problem manages to get it sorted it!
I even went as far as to reinstall windows 7 and all the rest of my programs, including shield deluxe. What a waste of my time!!!!!
Still has the same problem!!!
Massively disappointed with these guys, have had to re-install my OS as a result of this. The only plus point was I finally got around to upgrading from Windows Vista to 7. I am going to be asking these guys for a refund as a result and will never touch them with a barge pole again. How can they get away issuing an iteration like this without testing is frankly, beyond my comprehension.
Same problem.. Had to reinstall windows 7 again.. Uhh…
Nice one BD. After installing BD on 200+ client PCs, as well as my personal work network then seeing how unprofessional and amature the response to the problem was, not to mention the stupidity of allowing such a problem to happen in the first place…
I mean, cmon guys. Testing software releases is someting any half-decent software company does these days. Its practically routine, for crying out loud! How am I supposed to trust an AV company that doesn’t even know how to test its own updates, nontheless an update that goes wack and decides on putting all my DLLs and EXEs in the quarantine bin!
I got 8000 files infected on Vista Business x64 – Im worried about what has been disabled or moved or deleted.
Read this quoted from the BD fix page…
“Due to a recent update for Windows 64-bit systems it is possible that BitDefender detects several Windows and BitDefender files as infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.5 .”
I had 24256 files “solved” and 7939 threats requiring attention – how is this “several…files” and how is this only a “possible” problem???
BD… it is obvious that you don’t know anything about crisis mangement because you are trying to downplay the incident.
If you want any customer loyalty to remain, you better come clean!
I turned off real-time detection and tried to apply your patch but I get an error: “An error occurred while trying to replace the existing file: DeleteFile failed; code 5. Access is denied.” I have full Admin rights. I clicked retry 3 times and it seemed to work but more and more progs are getting blocked every minute.
Heppend to me. PISSED OFF. i WILL NOT EVER USE BIT FUCKING DEFENDER EVER AGAIN.
i think its the most idiotic thing to have a product out that can so thoroughly fuck up your system and to call it a virus scan!
Why don’t we all take a second and THANK the BitDefender team for ALL the malware they have blocked for us over the years, which other (lesser) and more expensive applications frequently fail to do.
I wish all those who won’t be renewing their BD licenses the very best of luck using inferior products.
And no, BD isn’t paying me to say this, I’m just sick of people whining every time something goes wrong.
Hi, my name is Raluca and I am a BitDefender representative.
We are very sorry for the situation created, due to our mistake we have caused many issues, and we understand and respect the magnitude of this circumstance.
Just to give you an update, the solutions can be found here:
http://www.bitdefender.com/site/KnowledgeBase/consumer/#638
If the provided solution does not work for you, then please try tu run the patch in safe mode and contact our support lines with the exact error message, check out forum.bitdefender.com or our @bitdefender Twitter account.
Thank you again for your understanding, we will keep you updated!
raluca
ok good news is that Im no computer geek and I fixed everything with the patch in one hour 15 minutes. I really hope the patch fixed everything…
Can somebody advice on what I can do to boot my PC. It is not booting after I shut it down due to this BD problem. Trajoan.fakealert.5.