ABCIPI- Hacking – Blog

Carrying on our blog on what you can expect to see if your computer has been hacked, we have covered ransom demands so here is another sign that you might have a problem.

· A fake antivirus message pops up
By this we mean that you will see a pop-up message that will come up on your mobile device computer telling you that it’s been infected. This notification will pretend to be and antivirus scanning product and will tell you that it has found several issues with malware infection on your computer. This used to be a popular form of scamming but is not as popular now, however fake virus warning messages are still a major red flag that need attention.

You might get a message like this for one of two reasons.

· Your system may have been compromised
· Your system may not be compromised

Obviously you would hope that the latter. What will often happen is that a fake antivirus message will have found out how to lock your browser so that you cannot cancel the fake message without cancelling the browser and restarting it.

If this happens to you may be able to close the tab and then restart your browser and everything will be fine. If the message has not backed up then it was a one-time fluke. In these cases you will generally have to restart the browser. Sometimes however the restart will reload the original page that brought the fake ad to you so it will come again. If this does happen to you then restart your browser in private mode or incognito on a different page so that the fake AV message is prevented from appearing.

If however the fake AV message has actually compromised your computer you will need to power it down. You will need to save anything you can before restarting the system to a previous point when it was clean. If you look great you will find that most systems have a reset feature that has been designed precisely for this eventuality.

Another variation of this type of scam is where you get an unexpected message that pops up and gives you a number to ring for technical support, warning you that you have to do this because your computer has been compromised. The message will often say it is from Microsoft, even if the computer you’re using is an apple computer. You will be asked to install a program and what this will do is give the scammers complete access to all your systems. This will run a fake antivirus program that, surprise surprise, will find that your computer is riddled with them! Then they will ask you to pay them to fix the problems for you.

Fortunately you will be usually be able to cancel this kind of threat by rebooting the computer or closing the browser program.

If you have fallen victim to one of these technical support scans and you have given your credit card details for payment then cancel your card immediately with the Credit card company, then contact ABCIPI so that we can ensure your computer is free of threat and can give you advice on how to avoid any such infiltration in the future. Contact us now