What to do when you get the “you may be infected” pop-up.

The above is but one of many varieties of pop-up that can occur when you visit an infected website. You don’t have to be visiting an obscure website to get this either, even Yahoo and The New York Times websites were unknowingly hosting this infection.

The question is what you should you do? Should you close the window? No! That will actually start the infection install process.

At the time of the pop-up you are not infected. But as soon as you click the Red X in the corner you are. This is because the whole pop-up is actually a picture and not a window, so the red X is part of the picture file that contains the infection and clicking on it anywhere starts the installation.

When this pop-up occurs should do these things:

1. Step away from the computer
2. Call us
3. We will direct you to do one of two things:
1. Kill the window by stopping the process that is running it
2. Pull the power plug

The solution will depend on what else you are doing at the time. Option 1 will preserve any open files that you have that aren’t saved yet. Option 2 will not.

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Harbor Computer Services provides IT services to businesses in Southeastern Michigan. Find out more about us www.harborcomputerservices.net