Beware of Pop-ups & E-mail Scams

Pop-ups with fake anti-virus warnings and e-mail scams have become almost epidemic!  We CONSTANTLY get calls about pop-ups advising that you have a virus & e-mail scams with links to warnings allegedly from system administrators, shipping companies, banks, credt card companies and more.  People ask about clicking on links, sometimes they already have; and now need a virus removed from their system. 

The rule of thumb is DON'T DO IT!!!  Even if you know who sent it, e-mail links are are trouble waiting to happen.  Read & re-read the content to see if you can sense anything that doesn't ring true.  If you have even a shred of doubt, e-mail the person who sent it and ask if they meant to send it or where the link is intended to take you.  Many times, the sender is unaware they sent you anything because they're already infected.  If you have an e-mail of which you are unsure, you can go to millersmiles.co.uk, a website that reports and archives e-mail scams and search for an e-mail that looks similar to yours.  

As for pop-ups when browsing, NEVER click anywhere inside the pop-up window - even to say "no thanks" or "cancel", as that will simply execute the malicious code anyway.  Use ALT/F4 to close the open window.  Keep hitting it until the window goes away.  If it doesn't, just shut your computer down immediately.

The pop-ups are caused by exploitive code designed to target people whose computers do not have ALL the latest updates.   You need to constantly make sure you have ALL the latest Microsoft updates, or it is only a matter of time before you become victim to one of these attacks!