Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I see this often. It is nothing. It's a scare tactic, that is all. Next time it happens (in a browser) simply close the tab or window and you are done with it. Clean out your browsing history and cache if you wish. Anybody can design a web page and put anything they want on it, doesn't mean you are infected. Just be more careful as to what sites you visit. There is malware floating around on the more "questionable" web sites and even some you wouldn't suspect. Make sure to have a good AV running.
Learn how to use the Task Manager. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del, then Task Manager or Right Click on the Taskbar. Close out any app like that.
I disconnected hard line internet connection.
(ED_RDNC suggestion)
No WiFi on desktop !
Start computer.
Red screen came up again. Full screen !
Pressed ESC
Saw that red screen is in browser
Stopped browser (click on *X*)
Click on Restart computer.
After all the screens, no red screen.
Clicked bottom left window icon, and choose *restart*
After all the screens again regular start screen, no red screen.
Now worried about starting browser ...
Turned off computer. (click on left bottom window, choose *Shutdown*)
Now what ?
Thinking back, nothing worked by typing anything on keyboard.
The only thing that worked was pressing the *ESC* in top right corner, but I did not do that before ...
Go into your browser settings and see where the home page is pointed. Probably at a local file in the browser cache. It's either that or you have a script that's redirecting you there since it's coming up with no internet connection.
Clear the browser cache and temporary files in Windows out. Download something like Malware Bytes or Spybot. Most likely it's just a fairly benign piece of malware that isn't doing anything but popping up the ransom screen but you might have trouble installing and updating whatever antivirus/malware in which case it gets harder. Simply clearing your browser cache and temporary files and going in and changing your browser home page may be the only thing you need to do. Get a more comprehensive antivirus suite (Bitdefender, AVG, Avast, whatever) and run a full scan. Even Windows Defender isn't bad assuming you haven't disabled it. Chances are there's nothing there but it doesn't hurt to check.
Practice safe browsing in the future. Get a popup blocker and disable Javascript enabling it only when needed for trusted sites. You can disable cookies entirely but it's a pain. Most websites don't need Javascript but they do use cookies. No matter what you do if you go to shady parts of the Internet, you'll get those popups. Popup blockers are not 100% effective and even with Javascript disabled they can be annoying, just can't really do anything malicious. You might have to close down the browser window by going into task manager (ctr+alt+delete) and going into processes and ending instances of the browser. Possibly use a more secure browser. Personally, I use Chrome. It's fairly good but Edge is better as that goes.
Try to do a system restore to a earlier time and date 1st and see if it resolved the issue, then go down the path of clearing browser cache setting etc and last resort can install.
Wont even ask , DO YOU HAVE A BACKUP of your Operating system, so can resort to, to avoid the 1-3 day task of reinstalling everything and going through all the windows updates
Got one of these on my wife's new laptop. Static page with a dialog box that we could not close. Could not close the "browser window" either. There was an 855 number to call for help that was purportedly a Microsoft number. It wasn't.
As far as I could determine it was a scam from McAfee, which came preinstalled. Restarted, uninstalled McAfee. Installed and ran Norton Internet Security. Ran scan. Nothing found. Malwarebytes gets installed today. I doubt it will find anything.
Number was 855-739-7818
Last edited by Tek_Freek; 09-12-2017 at 11:39 AM..
Go into your browser settings and see where the home page is pointed.
Quick note on this. If the home page was hijacked getting into the settings can be difficult bcause it spawns a dialog box making the settings link unclickable. If you close the dialog box it re-spawns and you end up in endless loop where the home page cannot be changed. At least this was experience I had with my parents computer using Edge.
There is really easy fix for this, close the browser and go to you Desktop. Right click and select New >> Shortcut.
Type in a any URL for the shortcut like http://google.com and click next to create the shortcut.
Double click the shortcut you created and will open the browser bypassing the homepage allowing you to get into the settings. You can do the same thing by sending yourself or someone else this happened to an email with a link if it's not web based email.
This is why I recommend a separate computer for the internet.I can download , install anything I want , go anywhere and and do anything, If I get infected with something I cant fix, I just reinstall the OS and Im back in business, I lose an hr and a few bookmarks.
after the computer boots, but before the virus starts popping up, hold the ALT key down and press the F4 key several times fast while holding the ALT key down.
This closes ALL files opened or opening until it will close everything and then ask you if you want to reboot or shutdown the computer. Then you can say no to the reboot.
This works like 95% of the time with all viruses or malware website addresses opening up.
Then you can usually look under Programs and Features and SORT the list by date, delete any newly added programs that might have been installed. Try to restore the computer after re-booting into SAFE Mode.
Go into your browser settings and see where the home page is pointed. Probably at a local file in the browser cache. It's either that or you have a script that's redirecting you there since it's coming up with no internet connection.
In the case of my Parents computer Malwarebytes found nothing wrong with it because they were able to hijack the homepage itself. I would presume there was pop up "Do you want to make this your home page ..." and someone confirmed the change.
Quote:
and disable Javascript enabling it only when needed for trusted sites
.
That is getting less practical as time goes by. JS is used for a plethora of things on most websites for client side features, performance, responsive design etc. CD is one site you could turn it off where the effects are minimal but this is old software. Many sites are designed with a fallback but that fallback may be no where near as feature rich and you may be missing out on lot of things a website can do.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Alt+f4
