Scam On Forum?

I came on the eaa forum and looked briefly at the Engine Failure topic. Just after that I got a notice on my screen which claimed to be from Microsoft about a virus in my computer. It looked pretty official was in a box about half the screen with an 1-888 number to call, sorry I didnt write it down. There was an official sounding voice that said this virus was giving away various personal information, and that's one way I knew it was bogus as some of this supposed info was things I dont even have.
So, of course, I didnt call that phone, and I shut down the topic.
I dont know if this came from our forum or not, but that was my first use this am, then I went to Yahoo for one topic, the shooting of the lady in Minneapolis when this bogus notice appeared. I had only looked, not written today, and I do have an antivirus protection but it didnt pick up this one. Yesterday and last night I had some computer trouble when witing in EAA, it would not let me edit, then jammed up all and was slugish to restart.
This was more convincing than the phone call I get often, same suject, but from a voice with a heavy Phiilpine accent.
Anyway if you get this just dont phone.

Those things can sit dormant for quite a while, and then pop up whenever they want.

I suggest going to malwarebytes.com and download, install and run their free scanner.
If you like it, their paid version gives real time protection. It doesn't interfere much with other virus scanners.

Like Paul said, this could have been picked up somewhere else, but good idea to mention it in case it *is* on the EAA forums.

One thing to keep in mind is that virus protection doesn't necessarily handle all threats. I use Malware Bytes in addition to my anti-virus.

A couple of months ago I was trying to chase down some information when a big booming voice told me my computer was now locked, all the data was now encrypted, and I'd have to pay money to have it freed up. Screen showed a similar warning. But a Malware Bytes pop-up appeared on top of it, telling me it had quarantined an attempted assault. Computer was unaffected, unless it just infected Bill's. :-)

In any case, I was happy to have Malware Bytes....

Ron Wanttaja

+1 on Malwarebytes. I use it in addition to McAfee anti-virus. But the hackers are everywhere and stuff can get through regardless.

Those are just fake web page virus alerts... from some other sketchy webpage you had in the background. More often than not they are fake pop ups and you do not have a real virus infection.

Best way to deal with them is do not click any buttons inside the dialogs, but click X box in its right corner. Some won't close, in which case right click on your task bar and close all you web browser windows. Or you can bring up the task manager and close the app, or force kill all your web browser processes. If that sounds too complicated to you, and you have no work open, just log out of your account.. that will close all running apps... And log back in.

Savy computer people do not run virus software always installed. It's like driving your car around with snow tires on all the time, even in spring, summer, and autumn. It will make your computer run like a dog. Worse, some people install multiple antivirus packages at a time. Imagine driving around in the summer with two layers of snow chains on. Yeah. Clueless. I guess maybe you feel more safe that way from blizzards???

Instead, pros only download software that they know is not sketchy from years of experience and always direct from manufacturers website, no where else. After a couple of years you figure out what's good and what you need and actually use all the time for apps and install only that, and don't go downloading and "trying new unknown software". With nothing from dubious sources installed and no longer trying new questionable software, you can run forever virus free with no antivirus package bogging down your system at all. No more virus scans ever.

If on the off chance we do get a not terribly aggressive virus, we kill it with a one time scan with Hitman PRO, free. Some really evil viruses are virus downloaders, though, and nothing will kill them as far as antivirus tools. No antivirus tool is capable of nailing everything.

The defacto way to kill all viruses is to take your hard drive out of the machine, connect it as a second drive to another machine you boot from, copy all work over, but the infected drive back in original machine, and reformat that b* and reinstall a fresh operating system. Time consuming, it takes about a day, to do the reformat, reinstall, and reinstall all your trick pony apps and turn lots of stupid stuff off that's on by default with a fresh install (Windows Search, Aero, etc) but guaranteed to kill every single virus and start you out with a clean slate.

Lots of things can make your computer chug, and it's not always a virus. Too much open. Out of real or virtual memory. Garbage collection in the background. Search indexer running. Bad hard drive sector the platter is stuck trying to read. Runaway process consuming all the CPU cycles. Et cetera. Before you apply any solution, identify exactly what is going on first... just like working on a car, if all you are doing is guessing and throwing money at it; you may fix the wrong problem, or you may never.