How to remove Paladin Antivirus (Uninstall instructions)

Paladin Antivirus is a new rogue antispyware program from the same family of rogues as Malware Defense and Anti Malware. Nothing new here, the rogue is distributed with the help of trojans. When the trojan is started, it will download and install Paladin Antivirus onto your computer without your permission and knowledge. The same trojan will also register the program in the Windows registry to run automatically every time when Windows loads.

During installation, Paladin Antivirus will ask you to uninstall legitimate antispyware tools (Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, AVG, etc). The following alert will be shown:

Paladin Antivirus
There is unauthorized antivirus software detected on your computer. It is recommended you to remove it, otherwise
it could conflict with Paladin Antivirus.

Once started, the rogue will imitate a system scan and detect a lot of various infections to make you think that your computer in danger, that it is infected with a lot of worms, trojans, spyware and other malware. Paladin Antivirus uses the real names of infection to make the scam look more realistic. However, the rogue won’t remove those infections unless you purchase so-called “full” version of the program. Most importantly, do not purchase Paladin Antivirus! All of these threats are fake. So you can safely ignore the scan results!

What is more, while Paladin Antivirus is running, you will be shown numerous warnings and a lot of fake security alerts and notifications from Windows task bar. The fake alerts stats:

Warning! Network attack detected!
Network intrusion detected!
Your computer is being attacked from a remote PC.

Warning!
Most of the viruses and worms on your PC because of visiting
pornosites or warez/torrent sites.

Warning!
PLEASE, OPTIMIZE YOUR PC. IT RUNS ONLY 10%.

Warning! Keylogger detected!
Keylogger activity detected on your PC!

Warning! Virus threat detected!
Virus activity detected!
Nuker.Win16 adware has been detected

Of course, all of these warnings and alerts nothing more but a scam and like false scan results should be ignored!

As you can see, Paladin Antivirus is a scam and should be removed from the system upon detection. If you are infected with this malware, then use these removal guide below, which will remove Paladin Antivirus and any other infections you may have on your computer for free.

More screen shoots of Paladin Antivirus

Symptoms in a HijackThis Log

O4 – HKCU\..\Run: [Paladin Antivirus] “C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus\pav.exe” -noscan

Use the following instructions to remove Paladin Antivirus (Uninstall instructions)

Step 1. Remove _VOID trojan (Rootkit TDSS)
Some variants of Paladin Antivirus installed with a _VOID trojan-rootkit that blocks the ability to run various antivirus and antispyware programs, including Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Download TDSSKiller from here and unzip to your desktop.

Open TDSSKiller folder. Double click the TDSSKiller icon to start scanning Windows registry for Rootkit TDSS. If it is found, the you will see a screen similar to the one below.

TDSSKiller

Type delete and press Enter. Once TDSSKiller has finished removing rootkit TDSS, you will see a windows as shown below.

TDSSKiller

Type Y and press Enter. Your computer will be rebooted.

Step 2. Remove Paladin Antivirus and any 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 Paladin Antivirus 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 Paladin Antivirus. MalwareBytes Anti-malware will now remove all of associated Paladin Antivirus 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.

Note: if you need help with the instructions, then post your questions in our Spyware Removal forum.

Paladin Antivirus creates the following files and folders

C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus
C:\Documents and Settings\comp\Start Menu\Programs\Paladin Antivirus
C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus\pav.exe
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Paladin Antivirus\Paladin Antivirus.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Paladin Antivirus\Uninstall Paladin Antivirus.lnk
C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus\pavext.dll
C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus\help.ico
C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus\pav.db
C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus\phook.dll
C:\Program Files\Paladin Antivirus\uninstall.exe
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Paladin Antivirus\Paladin Antivirus Support.lnk
%UserProfile%\Desktop\Paladin Antivirus Support.lnk
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Paladin Antivirus.lnk
%UserProfile%\Desktop\Paladin Antivirus.lnk

Paladin Antivirus creates the following registry keys and values

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\paladin antivirus
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Paladin Antivirus
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\paladin antivirus
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\extrac64_cab.exe