compter (web) question

[ulu]

Last night, as has happened before, I was on a site and hit the back arrow to go back to the previous site. A box pops up saying "do you really want to navigate away from this page?" click OK to remain on the page, cancel to continue.

First I hit the x at the top which makes the popup go away but as soon as I tried to go someone else it came back and wouldn't let me exit.

I hit cancel and the same result as hitting x.

Then I hit OK. A couple seconds later I get a message "your computer is being attacked etc, listing about 6 critical threats saying click here to delete them. I figured it was another scam so I just unplugged the computer. (windows xp)

Today it's extremely slow, and running at 100% constantly, so I'm guessing the critical threats were real.

My question is, when that popup shows up, with no real choice to exit the page, what can be done?

 

[Lucis]

You probably clicked some scam, that pretended to be windows. I would do a spyware check if I were you.

 

[AuburnMeg]

That's an ad. It pops up on mine sometimes, and the only way I can get it to go away is to exit and re-open the browser.

 

[Revived]

Last night, as has happened before, I was on a site and hit the back arrow to go back to the previous site. A box pops up saying "do you really want to navigate away from this page?" click OK to remain on the page, cancel to continue.

First I hit the x at the top which makes the popup go away but as soon as I tried to go someone else it came back and wouldn't let me exit.

I hit cancel and the same result as hitting x.

Then I hit OK. A couple seconds later I get a message "your computer is being attacked etc, listing about 6 critical threats saying click here to delete them. I figured it was another scam so I just unplugged the computer. (windows xp)

Today it's extremely slow, and running at 100% constantly, so I'm guessing the critical threats were real.

My question is, when that popup shows up, with no real choice to exit the page, what can be done?

You can power off immediately but in some cases it's inconsequential (the malware has already installed itself).

Scan everything with your AV and then install and run Malwarebytes.

 

[AuburnMeg]

You can power off immediately but in some cases it's inconsequential (the malware has already installed itself).

Scan everything with your AV and then install and run Malwarebytes.

See...I thought that it was installing something too, but when I checked my processes, there's nothing out of the usual. Even after I used AV, it's never detected anything. I don't know what the deal with it is.

 

[ulu]

That's an ad. It pops up on mine sometimes, and the only way I can get it to go away is to exit and re-open the browser.

How do you exit? Clicking the x top right of the page, the popup comes back and the page remains.

I'll try malewarbytes. Thanks

 

[AuburnMeg]

I've never had an issue getting it to close. You could always go to the task manager and stop the program from there.

 

[Qyöt27]

Also, for added security, run scans with SpyBot and CCleaner, particularly making sure to keep SpyBot's definitions updated and to use its Immunize feature. With CCleaner, both the Temp cleaning and Registry cleaner are excellent (it also has a Startup editor that is usually a lot easier to deal with than running msconfig). Also, Firefox's AdBlock Plus extension.

Generally (in regard to SpyBot's Immunize feature and AdBlock Plus) an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

[127.0.0.1]

Do a virus scan from a Linux Live DVD.

 

[Sketcher]

You've got a virus. You've got good advice for what to do about the virus.

You'll run into this again, so for next time: I have CCleaner installed. Whenever I run into that, I do Ctrl+Alt+Esc, I click the Applications tab, and I highlight by browser (Firefox) and I hit End Task. Windows asks me if I really want to End Now, and I tell it to as many times as I need to do it. Once that's done, I run CCleaner and I have it destroy everything in the cache (Make sure Internet Cache is checked under Firefox in the Applications tab). If I'm feeling really paranoid, I tell it to do multiple overwrites under Options > Settings. That usually does the trick.

But whenever I run into that when I'm in Linux, I just laugh at it because I am invincible.

 

[Nom De Guerre]

HijackThis, is a great program to help get rid of malware, and especially browser affected situations:

Trend Micro HijackThis - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

once you download and install, run the program and copy the log(ctrl+c) and paste it into a log analyzer as such:

HiJackThis! Log auto analyzer V2

it'll let you know what should, and shouldn't be, running in your Windows Task Manager.

Hope that helps,


Grace and peace.

 

[ulu]

Thanks for the help! I downloaded the first malware thing, and it found 5 trojans and deleted them. I'll downloaded the others tonight.

 

[trentlogain2]

unplugged the power cord??

do people really do this?

 

[ulu]

The only other option was to hold the power switch until it shut off, but I was too annoyed at that point to spend the extra 5 seconds.

 

[trentlogain2]

sounds you like got a good deal out of it if you were able to fix it with software. usually i have to reinstall windows.

 

[Sketcher]

unplugged the power cord??

do people really do this?

On some of the older Macs, you had to.

 

[ulu]

Now there's a new issue:

When I go online with firefox the 1st page that comes up is "server not found" instead of my yahoo homepage. All other websites work. When I'm in yahoo mail and I sign out I get the same "server not found" message. (windows xp) Anyone know why this is? Anytime I type yahoo.com directly I get the same server not found message.