Not necessarily a good idea to ignore Windows updates totally, they very often fix vulnerabilities. Microsoft aren't actually the demons of popular legend, they sometimes do things for a reason!

I normally allow MS to do auto updates, but may have got a bit blasé about checking, also about the necessity for frequent and varied virus scans. As a result, after 12 years of home computing and 40 years in IT, I finally got hit on Friday by a lovely piece of malware called MS Removal Tool. This nice little item pretended to be legit MS software but demanded $59.95 to unlock my PC and told me to call a US 1-800 number & to get my credit card out. Apparently folks who ring their "helpline" find the gent on the other end has a very harsh Russian type accent. There's a surprise.

Luckily the other user accounts on the PC were unaffected, also I know how to boot into safe mode, look at files and the registry etc, and I have a backup PC. It still took several hours to manually find the rogue process and delete it - 4 different virus scans didn't work and several fixes from the internet didn't either. I couldn't even use System Restore as I didn't have a restart point (my fault).   

I don't want to panic people, but there were about 150,000 hits on this subject on just one of the "fix your PC problems" sites yesterday. A lot of the security software firms appear to have been caught out by this one - it appears to be only a few weeks old. I do wonder whether using a certain well known social networking site makes one more vulnerable....

If you're using Win7 make sure you install Service Pack 1, if you're XP/Vista people make sure you're up to date with critical updates. Ensure System Restore is enabled properly, and do a virus scan ASAP.