Computer virus

I was using an old computer without virus protection and caught one.  The only sites I had been to was this one and facebook.

It came up looking like official FBI site telling me I had been violating copyrights and or looking at ****ography (which I defintely have not). It said that I had to pay a $200 fine within 48 hours to get use of my computer back and to keep from being prosecuted,  I was to go to CVS and buy a Money order and pay it through Money pal.

I could only get out of the site by turning off the computer.  I could not get back on the internet without it going back to that site.

My husband finally got it back working.

Just want ya'll to be aware there is something somewhere and be careful.  If the creator of this gets $200 from some folks he is making money.  I am sure he never restores their computers, that is the least of his concerns. 

 

Oh it is a scam. Wonder how many times it has worked with people who don't know any better.

Many people have gotten that from the games or apps on Facebook.

Matt and everyone -

If you are running into blocks, etc. here on HW - it's something that the Admin is aware of.... and, in fact, he wanted the moderators to share the information below in our forums.... let me know if you have any other questions! Thanks....

I've scanned the server, no results. Our hosting company has scanned the server, nothing found.

I suspected a rogue advertisement. Our ad network responded with the following:


We’ve looked into this and are not seeing anything on our side. I believe what is likely happening is some users have been hit with a malware/adware type program that lives locally on their computer. Several of these programs allow the purchase of pop-ups to be triggered based on either specific sites or specific keywords. So for example, and advertiser could buy ads based from the makers of a locally hosted piece of adware with instructions such as, “launch my pop-up when a users goes to Healingwell.com, or launch my pop-up when the user visits a page where “crohns” is mentioned”.

As an added piece of mind, we have since integrated a service called TagScan, from Ad-Juster, that regularly scans our ad tags (and any subsequent calls we make to third party ad agency systems or rich media vendors) for malware/adware type of deliveries. So if we get them (very rarely), we can catch them immediately – usually before they every go live, unless they wait for us to go live before swapping out a good ad for a malicious one.

I would suggest you post a note in the forum encouraging your users who see this to download a free version of AdAware, which I think is a fairly comprehensive Adware/Malware clean up tool
http://download.cnet.com/Ad-Aware-Free-Antivirus/3000-8022_4-10045910.html

As well as SpyBot’s Search and Destroy, which is also very good.
http://download.cnet.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html?tag=mncol;1

Running both will clean up most of what is out there. The best solution of course is a paid solution such as McAfee or Norton, but as freeware goes, the above two are very good.

We will of course continue to check on our end, as no system is 100% at blocking newly released malware, but TagScan is a commercial tool designed to ID malware and adware that gets syndicated through ad tags.


Peter's Note: May I also suggest using Malwarebytes. You can find it at:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

As a former professional geek, MalwareBytes and Search and Destroy are both highly recommended pieces of free software. You'd be surprised how much you can fix with just these, along with a good anti-virus. I even use a free anti-virus, which has protected me well for a number of years. Not sure if I can mention it here, but I haven't paid for one in a long time.

Think of it this way. An antivirus is a good storm door. MalwareBytes is a quality door lock. Search and Destroy is a quality deadbolt. You want to use all three. But remember, if you set these up to scan when you are not at your computer, you have to leave your computer running for it to work. It's a common mistake.

Now obviously, as the old saying goes, locks are for honest people. If someone really wants in, they can get in. But your normal everyday computer user has nothing of value to someone who is going to try to circumvent those three programs. Anyone who does, already knows about encryption and firewalls and the other stuff.

This also could be the result of an ongoing Java issue right now. Currently, my Firefox installation (which has been rock solid for years) is nearly unusable. I'm using Chrome for the moment until it gets straightened out.

We use Norton but the old computer has nothing asnd that was the one I was using.
My son told us to go back a few months and hit restore and it worked.

I use avast av on my gaming computer and spybot and ccleaner for easy uninstalls. I use seamonkey for my browser. This computer is running Linux OS, so no big worries here. (yes i am a nerd)

I consider myself a major geek (I learned how to punch COBOL when it was still useful, there's my street cred), but I've never gotten a linux distro to work correctly. I don't require anything OS specific, just can't get my hands around linux.

Running Win 7 now, and that's only because XP was being sunsetted *shakes tiny fist at Bill Gates* And it came with the new mobo I built my system around.

Our ad company has removed some 2nd tier ads that may be the culprits. Please email me at [email protected] if you see the virus alert/malware popup again.
Thanks!

Peter