Viruses

Posts pertaining to viruses or other types of malware.

Be Forewarned

At Friendly, we’ve been seeing a lot more viruses lately.  And on top of that, they seem to be coming in the form of fake FBI warnings – typically asking for money.  Here are two examples of exact variations that I have seen:

As you can tell, there is somewhat of a believable appearance to these messages.  Especially when you’re browsing MSNBC headlines and suddenly everything familiar to you disappears and these messages take over your entire screen.  Some of them even gain access to your webcam and have a section of the page labeled as “Camera Recording” or something to further scare you into believing this lie.

No, you weren’t looking at child porn, or illegally downloading some new movie (or were you???) — these are just points to scare an unsuspecting person into believing the last part of the page: how to get your computer back in your control.  It’s simple, just give these people falsely claiming to be the FBI roughly $200 and you can have it back.  Yeah…right.  How long till the bank account is dry?  If you see this message ever, the best thing to do is shut your PC off immediately and take it to a professional.  If you’re not concerned with your data, or you know for sure your data is backed up and easily restored, you can usually use your system restore CDs/DVDs to get your system back to factory settings (ixnay the virus).  However, I have seem some restore CDs/DVDs either not work, or were never created by the owner so therefore can’t be used.  There’s more steps involved at this point, but that’s why I say take it to a professional, like me!

Have you seen anything like this personally or have you removed this for someone else?  Let me know your story and thanks for reading!