Strange day: Has there been a high number hacks going on or what? Niece got hit with Adware and someone tried to order a

[Grateful11]

I know both of these situations are probably just coincidences but strange nonetheless.

First my niece texts me and tells me a few hours ago she got a pop-up while using Chrome that froze her
computer up and wouldn't let her do anything. The biggest mistake she made was dialing the number on
the pop-up. Thankfully she didn't give them any info. and hung up because she said their accent and
English was very poor. Here's what she got:



She has Applecare on her iMac and she called them and they helped her through uninstalling Chrome but
she said it still popped back up. She's not sure how new of a Time Machine Backup she has. Is their a
MalWare program for Macs yet?

*********************
Then a few minutes ago our son tells us he got an email saying that someone had ordered an iPad Air 2
from WalMart on our late sons account. His email address is still active and my son has it on his iPhone.
We didn't even realize he had a WalMart account. My son cancelled the order right away.

The thing is our late sons wallet was stolen from the hospital where he was first taken to 4 years ago. My SIL
went to pick up his clothes and whatever he had on him the next day and they told her someone had already
picked them up, so needless to say we never saw his clothes from that day or his wallet again. I can't hardly
believe someone would wait 4 years to try and use something from his wallet, I have to believe his account
was hacked. We called WalMart and tried to permanently close his account and the lady said other than
today the last thing ordered on his account was in 2010. Needless to say the whole thing was a bit unnerving.
She said because the order had been placed and even though it had been cancelled we couldn't close the
account for 24 hours. She did remove the credit card and his billing address from the account.

[space-time]

there is always adwaremedic. Apparently they were bought by MalwareBytes.

http://www.adwaremedic.com/index.php

[OWC Jamie]

If it is popping up in a browser
check preferences/extensions and remove/uninstall the tech support plug in

and
if it loads in the home page then preferences/general look for it's URL there where it shouldn't be.


If it is popping up NOT in a browser then one of the adware removers


I've had it pop up when I was forwarded to Yahoo for a news story and clicked on one of the ads/ news-for-you links on the right side with my baby finger by mistake.

[Black]

Grateful, I hope to god your daughter called Applecare and not the number in that alert.

[Grateful11]

Black wrote:
Grateful, I hope to god your daughter called Applecare and not the number in that alert.

It was my niece and no she called the friggin' number on the pop-up. I don't know why she did that.

[Black]

Grateful11 wrote:
[quote=Black]
Grateful, I hope to god your daughter called Applecare and not the number in that alert.

It was my niece and no she called the friggin' number on the pop-up. I don't know why she did that.
Sorry, I need to go back to speed reading school.

Anyways, I'd be more likely to think hackers hacked Wal-Mart than that this had anything to do with the stolen wallet.

[decay]

what's "Mac iOS" anyway? miley-laughing001:

[silvarios]

Yeah, that's a phishing attack. Two thoughts, after your niece called them, they might have been looking to immediately install malware or alternately install remote access in order to have later opportunities for mayhem.

I'd nuke and pave and reinstall from a backup, assuming there's a proper backup for any necessary files (you mentioned Time Machine so fingers crossed). Potentially no worries, but to be on the safe side, might be best to consider changing any stored passwords as well.

In all honesty, malware program or not, nuke and pave is the safest best, then a malware scan after you reload the files from backup just in case.

[Grateful11]

decay wrote:
what's "Mac iOS" anyway? miley-laughing001:

That was the dead giveaway for me too. As soon as I saw it said Mac iOS and she was using an iMac I knew
it was a phishing scam.

[tronnei]

Same thing happened to my son's Macbook after he visited some sketchy website. I tried to remove it using conventional means but it was no use. Adwaremedic made quick work of it, however. No need to nuke and pave.