Firefox scam...

[Marsha]

Thanks, e. I will check out Privacy Badger. When you ran Malwarebytes, did it say it found the virus?

 

[eclark1894]

Nope.

 

[Marsha]

I installed Privacy Badger. Nice, but it did not stop the pop-up for me. I suspect this is because it is being started by some process, not via any website. Best I can tell, the Badger is only checking websites, not my system. I've looked at all my running services, processes and applications and have not found anything that looks suspicious.

Thanks for the advice anyway. Guess I will just keep closing the window.

 

[eclark1894]

Just thought I'd inform you guys of a new scam I have heard about on the news. (No, I haven't fallen for it, but yeah, I have done this before.) Warnings are being posted warning people that if they find an abandoned flashdrive anywhere, let it be and DO NOT PUT IT IN YOUR drive port. They may contain malware and in some cases even ransomware. All you have to do is put the drive in your USBport, and your computer is infected.

 

[Miss B]

Oh, I haven't heard about that one Earl. Thanks for posting about it.

 

[seachnasaigh]

That's a classic method used by spooks; "accidentally" drop a payload-bearing flash drive where the target individual will likely find it.

The ransomware types have even started placing these boobytrapped flash drives in mail boxes to target specific people.

 

[Miss B]

The ransomware types have even started placing these boobytrapped flash drives in mail boxes to target specific people.

One good reason to live in an apartment building. I have to use a key to get into my mailbox. Only way they could get something in there is to actually mail it to me, which I doubt they'd try.

 

[Lorraine]

That's a nasty one, Earl!

And welcome to the Hive, Marsha

 

[eclark1894]

Another tactic is to go to places like malls or seminars and put out a bowl of flashdrives that people think come with the seminar or are a promotional gimmick of some sort. You should check with the organizer to make sure everything is okay. Even then it may not be safe. Some crooks will slip a poisoned drive into the bowl with the others.

 

[Miss B]

Good point Earl, and welcome to the HiveWire forums from me too Marsha.

 

[Miss B]

Good point Earl, and welcome to the HiveWire forums from me too Marsha.

 

[Pendraia]

Welcome to the Hive Marsha.

I don't use Firefox and haven't seen this one but I when I had a similar problem Malwarebytes and Hitman Pro cleaned it out.

 

[carmen indorato]

on a mac and have been attacked severl times like this and though mostly on my iPad running iOS 9.x I did hget hit last week on my MacBook running Firefox. My screen got locked up with a message telling me I had to call Apple immediately to get help with some dumn problem or other. Never really read the whole message. No matter what I tried even rebooting the computer did not help (my laptop anyway). Then my dead head got a Godly Epiphany and I went into Firefox Preferences an cleared ALL Cookies, Caches etc and rebooted and sure enough I got my browser and computer back.
I hate those people who do this kind of thing an they are ALL from overseas.
Many times my Service provider notifies me of stuff like this and encourages me to DL their prevention Software but it is almost always for Windows machines.....until this one came along. I wish i felt safer browsing with my iPad but since it seems less protected from this kind of attack I rarely use it to web browse especially unknown sites.