{"id":10272,"date":"2015-11-08T20:23:39","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T01:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=10272"},"modified":"2015-11-09T07:23:46","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T12:23:46","slug":"stop-serious-security-threats-have-been-detected-on-your-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/stop-serious-security-threats-have-been-detected-on-your-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop: Serious security threats have been detected on your computer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stop: \u00a0Serious security threats have been detected on your computer<\/h1>\n

I was browsing through some freeware sites the other day (and I’m sorry I can’t remember exactly which one) and I saw the warning below appear. It had my real IP address and my ISP. I wondered how many people have been duped by this advertisement disguised as a blue screen warning.<\/p>\n

From the fake *** STOP: \u00a00x000007E (0xFFFFFFFFFCOOOOOO47 ,..yada yada yada) to the “Your personal photos, credit card information and passwords may be compromised. It is highly recommended that you do NOT continue using your computer until you’ve contacted an official technician. Your IP XXX.XXX.XXXX may be under attack…” \u00a0It’s all an advertisement\/scam. If you call that number they will want to connect to your computer. If you allow them to connect to your computer they’ll run a fake scan (or point out things running in Task Manager) and tell you that your computer is horribly infected and your passwords, Facebook accounts, bank accounts, and your credit card information is at risk. Only one of those things is true – your credit card information is certainly at risk if you call the number on this scam and give them your credit card information.<\/p>\n

Remember, if \u00a0you’re on the Web you’re not not going to see Windows Blue Screens popping up in a browser windows. It’s all a scam,<\/p>\n

WHAT TO DO:<\/p>\n

Do not call the number on this scam warning. Do not panic. Your computer is not infected. Your personal information is not at risk and your IP address is not at risk. Getting your IP address and ISP is easy – in fact, every Web site you visit gets this information from your browser. ( See\u00a0https:\/\/www.whatismyip.com\/what-my-ip-says-about-me\/<\/a>\u00a0)<\/p>\n

If you see this or anything like this, telling you that your personal information, files, credit card data, is at risk — it’s a scam. Do not click call the phone numbers on it, do not click any X’s, do not click anywhere – use your ALT+F4 keys to close the browser Window.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If Alt+F4 does not work for you, use the following method to close the browser.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Open Task Manager (Press Control+Shift+Esc)<\/p>\n

Click on the Processes tab<\/p>\n

If you’re using the Chrome browser, find chrome.exe in the list of processes. There will probably be quite a few of them since Chrome uses a separate process for each tab and sometimes for extensions. Right-click on each chrome.exe and chose “End process tress” confirm you want to end the process and ignore the warning that closing this process may cause you to lose data. Do that with each process showing in Task manager until Chrome is closed.<\/p>\n

If you’re using Firefox, \u00a0find firefox.exe in the list of processes, click each one and choose “End process tree”.<\/p>\n

If you’re using Internet Explorer, find iexplore.xe in the list and proceed as above.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of people fall for scams like this every single day. We don’t want you to be one of them. Look carefully at the graphic below so you’ll know a scam when you see one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stop: \u00a0Serious security threats have been detected on your computer I was browsing through some freeware sites the other day (and I’m sorry I can’t remember exactly which one) and I saw the warning below appear. It had my real IP address and my ISP. I wondered how many people have been duped by this advertisement disguised as\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1655,1462,1433,1669,1670,1656,1654],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10272"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10276,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10272\/revisions\/10276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}