Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 November 9

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November 9

phony virus alert

I had one of those screens pop up warning of a phony virus and conveniently offering a service to fix it, which they assured was affiliated with Microsoft. It went away when I was able to close the browser (Chrome) using the Task Manager and then uninstalling Chrome. I reinstalled Chrome and all seems to be well. Do I need to do anything else? Like delete cookies?

You probably didn't even need to uninstall Chrome. Most of those messages I've seen are just a web page, and nothing more, so as soon as you close the web page tab, you are fine. StuRat (talk) 17:02, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Either it was just a spam popup and it would have done nothing (if you were not gullible enough to pay actual money or disclose personal information as it instructed you to do), which means uninstalling the browser was unnecessary. Or it came with malicious scripts, in which case (unless you jumped on the task manager real quick) it could have installed pretty much anything it pleases pretty much anywhere using any of the zillions of privilege escalation exploits of the software you run, and nothing short of reinstalling the whole operating system guarantees a clean state. (The second case is much less likely.)

Reinstalling the browser should clean cookies but I am not sure. In any case, cookies are not harmful by themselves; one cookie could ask the website you acquired it on to deliver harmful content at your next visit, but that is the website's mischief, not the cookie's. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:21, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, the pop-up is probably gone from your system, but, just to be sure, (if you share my paranoia,) you might like to run a couple of anti-virus programs. Take your choice. There are lots of free programs that will detect and remove the common infections. Dbfirs 17:29, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Restoring your PC to a previous satisfactory point is also helpful/advantageous/optional... 103.230.106.4 (talk) 20:36, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

I had the same kind of thing happen to me - specifically the "1-855-336-9893 pop-up". I have a MacBook Air and saw that most of the instructions are for windows based systems, which seems to indicate that there might be a program loaded onto the computer -- but I don't know posts like this are just more scam/hype or not. I tried loading the latest Apple security update, but I'm all caught up. Right now, I am using Safari instead of Chrome. Is it a Chrome issue? Should I be concerned?

StuRat's comments are comforting, if it's the same issue.--CaroleHenson (talk) 02:58, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. Ironically, though I normally don't pick up the phone if I don't recognize the number (let them leave a voice mail if it's important), this afternoon I did and it turned out to be a scammer. She was from "Tech Support" which works for 26 anti-virus companies to assist their customers. However, she couldn't tell me the name of my company (Malwarebytes). At the end of our interesting conversation, she asked me to speak my name into the phone. Right, and allow them to add detail to their database which now only indicates that it is a live number. --Halcatalyst (talk) 05:24, 11 November 2016 (UTC)