Virus Alert
There you are, surfing the internet, looking up a recipe or reading a post on a website. All of the sudden a large alert appears on your screen telling you that your computer is infected, or that it has been locked due to illegal activity. Oftentimes, you can’t close or hit the back arrow on the website to get away from this alert. And there is a phone number that will be listed there for you to call to resolve the issue.
This is always a scam. Anytime that a phone number appears on the screen that you did not specifically search for, it is a scammer attempting to get you to call.
If you call the phone number, they will use every social engineering trick that they know to convince you to spend money with their company, or convince you that money has already been spent and that they are there to assist you with a refund. Neither of these things are true. By calling the phone number listed in those “alerts” The scammer will immediately do everything that they can to obtain as much information, or money, that they can from you.
One form of the scam is that they will tell you that they represent some large computer company. Often, they will claim that they work for Microsoft, or Norton, or McAfee or some other security software. They will then attempt to convince you to download a tool onto your computer so that they can remotely assist you. What this does is allows them access and control of your computer, and sometimes this tool will remain even after your computer is restarted. Once they have access to your computer, they will attempt to access your passwords and your accounts.
To overcome this, All you need to do, is restart your computer and after restarts, feel free to open your browser again. It will ask if you want to reopen the last pages you had open, just click to dismiss that notification and continue browsing normally. If you ever get stuck or need assistance, please feel free to reach out and we will more be more than happy to help you with this.
Frankenstein Computers has been taking care of our happy clients since 1999. We specialize in NO CONTRACT IT Support, Cyber Security, IT Service, IT Security, Office 365, Cloud, VOIP, SPAM, Wireless, Network Design, Custom Gamers, MAC repair, PC Repair, Virus Removal, and much more. https://www.fcnaustin.com/services/
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