celtictigeress
12-06-2008, 07:41 AM
There is a nasty computer virus out there that disguises itself as a "virus attack warning" through a pop-up screen. If someone clicks on "OK" (or even on the X in the upper left corner of the window) the virus will start to install itself, masquerading as virus prevention software. This virus can come disguised as other things too, such as computer or Ad-Aware updates, and the pop-up is always very convincing. Kurt barely saved me from downloading the virus this morning. I had posted a response on my MSN email page to a news story; when the pop-up window arose I clicked on the X, thinking that would get rid of the problem, but the virus started to install itself anyway. The installation screen looked like something straight from Microsoft; it even showed our "My Computer" section! If my husband hadn't known what to do we'd have a password hijacker virus on our computer.
If anyone gets that "virus attack warning" pop-up window, here's what they should do:
1. Immediately press "control+alt+delete"
2. You will get the Task Manager pop-up
3. Go to "properties"
4. In "properties", delete both cookies and files
5. When deleting files, place a check in the "delete all offline content" box
6. Reboot
It doesn't hurt to run Ad-Aware or Spy-Bot Search and Destroy once you're back up again, but the important thing is to abort the virus installation through steps 1-6.
Legitimate virus killing software never comes with pop-up windows -- that's how to know something isn't right. You may lose whatever you were working on when you do the steps I've listed (if you haven't saved it) but that's better than ending up with a password-hijacking virus. Watch out for it!eek:
If anyone gets that "virus attack warning" pop-up window, here's what they should do:
1. Immediately press "control+alt+delete"
2. You will get the Task Manager pop-up
3. Go to "properties"
4. In "properties", delete both cookies and files
5. When deleting files, place a check in the "delete all offline content" box
6. Reboot
It doesn't hurt to run Ad-Aware or Spy-Bot Search and Destroy once you're back up again, but the important thing is to abort the virus installation through steps 1-6.
Legitimate virus killing software never comes with pop-up windows -- that's how to know something isn't right. You may lose whatever you were working on when you do the steps I've listed (if you haven't saved it) but that's better than ending up with a password-hijacking virus. Watch out for it!eek: