Home Safety Essentials is a rogue anti-spyware program from the Virus Doctor rogues family as Anti-Malware Lab, PC Security Guardian, Best Malware Protection, Internet Security Essentials, Internet Antivirus 2011, My Security Shield, Security Master AV, etc. It blocks legitimate antispyware and antivirus tools, hijacks browsers, redirects you to malicious websites, displays numerous fake security alerts and nag screens in order to trick you into thinking your computer is heavy infected. It hopes that you will next purchase the full version of the program to remove all what it found. Important to note, the fake antivirus is unable to detect and remove any infections, so do not pay for the bogus software!
Like other rogues from same family, Home Safety Essentials is distributed with the help of trojans or through the use of advertisements which pretends to be an online malware scanner. This advertisement will state that you computer is infected and all you have to do in order to cure your computer is install the software. Important to know, this online scanner is a fake and cannot detect any viruses or infections on your PC. The results that are displayed are totally fabricated!
When installed and started, Home Safety Essentials will configure itself to run automatically every time when Windows loads. Next, it will add a few entries into the HOSTS file so that when you open Google, Yahoo or Bing, you will be redirected to various misleading websites. The rogue will also create several fake malware files, that absolute harmless but, later during the scan, it will label them as worms, trojans and viruses. Of course, the scan look realistic and legitimate, you should never trust it! Home Safety Essentials want to trick you into thinking that your computer in danger and make you believe you must buy the full version of the software. So you can safely ignore the false scan results.
While Home Safety Essentials is running, the rogue will display a variety of fake security warnings and alerts that attempt to make you think your computer is infected with all sorts of malicious software. However, like false scan results above, all of these fake security messages are just a fake and has been displayed to trick you into purchasing so-called full version of the fake security program.
As you can see, Home Safety Essentials is a scam that has been created with one purpose – to scare you into thinking that your computer is infected, so you will then purchasing the program. Do not be fooled into buying the program! Instead of doing so, follow the removal guidelines below in order to remove Home Safety Essentials and any associated malware from your computer for free.
Symptoms in a HijackThis Log
O4 – HKCU\..\Run: [Home Safety Essentials] “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\[RANDOM]\HS[RANDOM]_[RANDOM].exe” /s /d
Automated Removal Instructions for Home Safety Essentials
Step 1. Reboot your computer in Safe mode with networking
Restart your computer.
After hearing your computer beep once during startup, start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. On a computer that is configured for booting to multiple operating systems, you can press the F8 key when the Boot Menu appears.
Instead of Windows loading as normal, Windows Advanced Options menu appears similar to the one below.
Windows Advanced Options menu
When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, select Safe mode with networking and then press ENTER.
Step 2. Reset proxy settings of Internet Explorer
Run Internet Explorer, Click Tools -> Internet Options as as shown in the screen below.
Internet Explorer – Tools menu
You will see window similar to the one below.
Internet Explorer – Internet options
Select Connections Tab and click to Lan Settings button. You will see an image similar as shown below.
Internet Explorer – Lan settings
Uncheck “Use a proxy server” box. Click OK to close Lan Settings and Click OK to close Internet Explorer settings.
Step 3. Remove Home Safety Essentials associated malware
Download MalwareBytes Anti-malware (MBAM). Once downloaded, close all programs and windows on your computer.
Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe. This will start the installation of MalwareBytes Anti-malware onto your computer. When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and when the program has finished installing, make sure a checkmark is placed next to “Update Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware” and Launch “Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware”. Then click Finish.
MalwareBytes Anti-malware will now automatically start and you will see a message stating that you should update the program before performing a scan. If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
As MalwareBytes Anti-malware will automatically update itself after the install, you can press the OK button to close that box and you will now be at the main menu. You will see window similar to the one below.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Window>
Make sure the “Perform quick scan” option is selected and then click on the Scan button to start scanning your computer for Home Safety Essentials infection. This procedure can take some time, so please be patient.
When the scan is finished a message box will appear that it has completed scanning successfully. Click OK. Now click “Show Results”. You will see a list of infected items similar as shown below.
Note: list of infected items may be different than what is shown in the image below.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware, list of infected items
Make sure all entries have a checkmark at their far left and click “Remove Selected” button to remove Home Safety Essentials. MalwareBytes Anti-malware will now remove all of associated Home Safety Essentials files and registry keys and add them to the programs’ quarantine. When MalwareBytes Anti-malware has finished removing the infection, a log will open in Notepad and you may be prompted to Restart.
Step 4. Reset HOSTS file
Please download OTM by OldTimer from here and save it to desktop. Run OTM, copy, then paste the following text in “Paste Instructions for Items to be Moved” textarea (under the yellow bar):
:Commands
[resethosts]
Click the red Moveit! button. Close OTM.
Home Safety Essentials removal notes
Note 1: if you can not download, install, run or update Malwarebytes Anti-malware, then follow the steps: Malwarebytes won`t install, run or update – How to fix it.
Note 2: if you need help with the instructions, then post your questions in our Spyware Removal forum.
Note 3: your current antispyware and antivirus software let the infection through ? Then you may want to consider purchasing the FULL version of MalwareBytes Anti-malware to protect your computer in the future.
Home Safety Essentials creates the following files and folders
%AllUsersProfile%\[RANDOM]\HS[RANDOM]_[RANDOM].exe
%AllUsersProfile%\[RANDOM]\HSE.ico
%AllUsersProfile%\[RANDOM]\HSESys
%AllUsersProfile%\[RANDOM]\Quarantine Items
%AppData%\Home Safety Essentials\
%AppData%\Home Safety Essentials\Instructions.ini
%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Home Safety Essentials.lnk
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Home Safety Essentials.lnk
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Home Safety Essentials.lnk
%UserProfile%\Desktop\Home Safety Essentials.lnk
Home Safety Essentials creates the following registry keys and values
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Home Safety Essentials
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run | Home Safety Essentials
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options | Debugger = “svchost.exe”
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\URL http://findgala.com/?&uid=247&q={searchTerms}
