Computer question - Windows message

C

ck9791

Rear Admiral
My wife recently received her new laptop and was using internet explorer on it last night. When she went to a website she visits periodically a message popped up saying that the "website had detected a virus on her computer" or something to that effect. She immediately shut everything down and then did a full scan with McAfee which did not find anything.

Has anyone else seen a message like this before, did she get something that McAfee didn't find or is it a problem with her internet explorer settings and website that is triggering the message.?
 
It's very likely to be a fake antivirus ad popup. Basically unscrupulous individuals + ad hosts have these things popup, usually with a link to software to supposedly remove the non existant virus that it claims to have detected. You install the software and then it will be a pain in the ass until you pay up to remove the virus it supposedly found (really the rogue software itself).

Keep Windows and your software up to date, run antivirus scans, perhaps run something like malwarebytes too, and you should be good. Also, I'd personally run Firefox with Adblock Plus and noscript, instead of IE, to help avoid these kind of things.
 
ck. I get this all the time and its as Silanda says. Its nothing more than a fake popup window. Just close the window and restart IE.
 
Agree with the posters above, but one thing to add. You might want to get a better virus scanner than McAfee. I used to run McAfee, and over time my computer still got gummed up with adware and viruses. Maybe it's better now than it was then (about four years ago), but I've been looking over virus scanner reviews, and it doesn't seem to be. I switched to Kaspersky, and managed to find some hostile sites with that that my wife's laptop (running McAfee) and even my job's computers (running special, government security software) didn't pick up. From the reviews I've been reading now, it seems like there are about four or five good antivirus programs out (Kaspersky is one of them, although overpriced, and even Norton seems to have elevated itself into the realm of "good"), but McAfee isn't one of them.
 
I think if you're the type of person who gets all freaked out when a website says your computer has a "virus" or if you actually have "virus scanner" software you deserve to be set on fire. No thoughtful action has ever precipitated the download of malicious software.
 
I found most business edition antivirusses better to work with(and less CPU hungry). I've been perfectly happy with even Norton's corporate software. With free software like AVG personal, Avira antivir for virusscan, and running some cleanups with Ad-aware and CCleaner nog and then should suffice for any user who visits reasonable sites(Going to a site that says they host cracked software is asking for trouble)

IE is very sensitive to mallware, and has always been, even Firefox, Chrome, and Sleipnir are now also vulnerable, but IE is the most simple to target.

But it's a business laptop, so just let her contact her friendly office system administator if you are in doubt.
 
Mace said:
With free software like AVG personal, Avira antivir for virusscan, and running some cleanups with Ad-aware and CCleaner nog and then should suffice for any user who visits reasonable sites(Going to a site that says they host cracked software is asking for trouble)
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Free AVG works very well. I would also recommend Spybot S&D to set a bunch of preventative measures.
 
It is her personal laptop. She just received it from Dell a week ago. I asked her today if she had any more problems with it but she said that it started fine and run fine.
 
If its the one I am thinking of, where a bogus window pops up and pretends to scan your PC, ignore it. I have seen this a few times at work. From what I understand, it is a piece of code embedded in a flash advert (that appear on sites, and not just dodgy ones, one of our work PC's got it from a Window and Door sales site of all places.) that executes and pushes up this flash animation of the computer being scanned, its all bull however, What you did was exactly right, just disconnect the web and restart.

I would recommend perhaps running malwarebytes as a precaution, http://www.malwarebytes.org/

here you go, its free to download and use for home users
 
Yes that is what happened, first a box popped up in the middle of the screen saying that the "website detected a virus" and then when she tried to close the box, she didn't hit ok another window popped up showing what looked like a scan of the PC. She immediately closed this window and explorer and shut down. She then restarted did a full scan.

It didn't have any problems yesterday, but we are going to keep an eye on it and download a second program like spybot or malewarebyes to doublecheck.

Thanks for the advice everyone.
 
ck9791 said:
Yes that is what happened, first a box popped up in the middle of the screen saying that the "website detected a virus" and then when she tried to close the box, she didn't hit ok another window popped up showing what looked like a scan of the PC. She immediately closed this window and explorer and shut down. She then restarted did a full scan.

It didn't have any problems yesterday, but we are going to keep an eye on it and download a second program like spybot or malewarebyes to doublecheck.

Thanks for the advice everyone.
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I saw this recently on a computer I administer - what's most curious about it is that it popped up in an IE window, triggered by a webpage in Firefox.

At any rate, the 'scan' window is really just a bunch of animated graphics - if you saw it you would know that immediately because it likely wouldn't match your drive configuration. The very next step is that the scan 'animation' declares there is a virus and you must download their removal tool, which understandably infects the PC (and opens it up to even more infection).

AVG ended up catching most of the infections, but there's been a notable slowdown on the affected computer network, as traffic seems to be running much higher then the computer could possibly be generated by a single user, so I'm under the impression that AVG didn't catch everything. The computer has been dumped into quarantine on the network, and we decided to just order a new one.

My experience with these new spy/ad/virus ware crap is that they get their tendrils so deep into the operating system sometimes the only way to remove them is with a clean OS install, since there was money in the budget and it was time to replace the hardware anyway I opted for short term network protection until the new computer gets here.
 
There have been lots of these actually. But not only does it not match your drive configuration, the icons look like something from Acronis or Partitition magic.

The network broadcast thingy is a serious bother(We had a chairman in a rented office who actually send a "no, I am not interested, please stop sending me this"-reply to everyone who offered him Caelis or Viagra, who worked from an unsecured connection at home or at hotels, and when he one time came in(once every three months he sits there for a day to check his mail(the paper one), he plugged it into an outlet and the switches in the rack(all of them) lit up like an Xmass tree, trying to get access to unsecured machines(or users with reading problems).

Why not simply re-image the machine? You can allways sell it to staff members once you clean it up.
 
Mace said:
Why not simply re-image the machine? You can allways sell it to staff members once you clean it up.
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I plan to. I'm going to pull the hard drive, wipe it, and give it a Black Light sweep before doing anything with it, though.

The problem with protection programs (like AVG or Zone Alarm, which is what we use [with the integrated anti-virus anti-spyware program) is that it's only as good as the end users knowledge and capability, and sometimes that's just not enough.

My wife is an adamant fan of the new show 10 Things I Hate About You, and they had a great quote last night: "You have old-person-trying-to-use-a-computer face!" and it just made me think. I'm on call 24/7, and I guess I don't realistically expect people to call me every time they need to download something, but I do expect them to know what they don't know.
 
"A computer drivers license" has been debated within many IT-crowds..

Also, if you choose to use your business laptop to download/watch series, or do whatever to screw your system up for non-workrelated business, you can get notice from your manager(If he has to go to the IT guys to ask why somebody can't do their job because their computer is always in "repair" it'll become their problem). These people deserve thesame treatment as those who call technical support because they can not log on while their laptop is not in the docking station but either at home or still in their suitcase.

Also consider this, set up an external account for IT support, and ask 50$ a useless call, you'll see giant progress in the end-user levels after the first detailed declaration reaches management levels.
 
Mace said:
Also, if you choose to use your business laptop to download/watch series, or do whatever to screw your system up for non-workrelated business, you can get notice from your manager(If he has to go to the IT guys to ask why somebody can't do their job because their computer is always in "repair" it'll become their problem).
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Except if it's the manager that's the problem child. :p

"Do as I say, not as I do," indeed. :rolleyes:
 
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