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Osem · 29-11-2010, 18:03

H, the wife was just Googling for some recipes when she clicked on a link to a site and before anything else appeared, got what looked like a typical Internet Explorer alert box. This stated, in not very good English, something along the lines of 'your computer contains harmful programmes and applications etc....' and offered to so some sort of scan to remedy the problems. The box contained the usual OK and Cancel buttons plus the red/white 'close' box in the top right hand corner. She didn't click on any of these but tried to close the webpage down using the close button on the tab and then the main close button on the top right hand corner of the screen, neither of which worked. At this point the dubious webpage was still blank and the suspricious IE warning message box was still displayed. In the end she decided to simply logout from the start menu and this had the desired effect. Being even less PC literate than me, she was in a bit of a panic but did she do the right or best thing?

We're using Avast 4.7 and it didn't give any alert but we're doing a full scan now just in case.

I think this may have been one of these sites that trick people into downloading what they think is some sort of AV programme but turns out to be somethign else. Is that possible/likely?

29-11-2010, 18:03	#1
Osem Inactive Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Right here! Posts: 22,315	IE Security threat? H, the wife was just Googling for some recipes when she clicked on a link to a site and before anything else appeared, got what looked like a typical Internet Explorer alert box. This stated, in not very good English, something along the lines of 'your computer contains harmful programmes and applications etc....' and offered to so some sort of scan to remedy the problems. The box contained the usual OK and Cancel buttons plus the red/white 'close' box in the top right hand corner. She didn't click on any of these but tried to close the webpage down using the close button on the tab and then the main close button on the top right hand corner of the screen, neither of which worked. At this point the dubious webpage was still blank and the suspricious IE warning message box was still displayed. In the end she decided to simply logout from the start menu and this had the desired effect. Being even less PC literate than me, she was in a bit of a panic but did she do the right or best thing? We're using Avast 4.7 and it didn't give any alert but we're doing a full scan now just in case. I think this may have been one of these sites that trick people into downloading what they think is some sort of AV programme but turns out to be somethign else. Is that possible/likely?