Apparently support for AVG 7.5 has been extended until end of February.
One comment I read was "I think they really mean it, this time."
As to whether Norton etc might have stopped this, who knows? But if you Google the question, it appears it didn't in at least two cases seen by a quick look. Appears to need a specialist removal tool. Symantec, F-secure and others make such a tool available, which
may imply that their mainstream AV's don't always deal with it.