Fake Pop-up windows? allegedly from Microsoft and McCaffee sayings computer is infected with cloudfront address
I have been getting pop-up widows while using The Washington Post website (also ZDnet) that say they are from Microsoft or Norton saying my computer is infected. I believe they are fakes. The last one was from a cloudfront address. I'm sorry I did not notice the address of all. Ran virus scans from Norton and Malware bytes and found nothing. I have been carrying on conversation with Washington Post blaming them for not monitoring their website properly but also am aware my be coming from my Firefox. How do I track down this problem or block those websites from loading?
All Replies (4)
If you've already run Malwarebytes, please do the following:
- Update Windows.
- Uninstall any anti-virus on your computer, use Windows Defender and monthly scans with Malwarebytes
- Install https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
Hi, some additional info:
There are a few common patterns to these annoying pages, and these are some techniques for closing them without having to take drastic measures.
The "key" (ha ha) is the keyboard shortcut for closing the current tab, which is Ctrl+w (or on Mac, Cmd+w). Try it after each action to see whether it is available yet.
(1) Large alert dialog (lots of text)
If you cancel this dialog, it may reappear. After two or three appearances, Firefox should add a checkbox at the bottom of the dialog to stop the site from showing more alerts. Check that box and click OK to block further dialogs.
(2) Authentication dialog (asks for username and password)
If you cancel this dialog, the page may reload and immediately show it again. Pressing the Esc key numerous times in a row can cancel the reload as well as the dialog.
(3) Reacting to mouse movement
Some pages have a script that detects when you are moving the mouse pointer up toward the tab bar and takes action to show another dialog, or moves to full screen view to hide the toolbar area. On these pages, the keyboard shortcut is essential.
Hopefully this will let you close problem pages without having to "kill" Firefox in the Windows Task Manager. (I don't recommend using that method because the tab will come back during automatic crash recovery anyway.)
Thanks for the re[lies. Perhaps you can help with the bigger question. Where are these pop-ups originating? Are they from the web page I am visiting because that web page has been infected/corrupted or are they from my browser or from elsewhere on my computer? How do you find out?
Very few popups tend to originate from other software on your computer. One way to diagnose that is to change your default browser to a different browser, since externally generated windows more commonly use your default browser rather than the one you happen to be active in at the moment.
The more likely scenario is that the scams spread through the ad networks used on those sites.