Lynn Says

It is necessary to write this warning about once every three months. I received a call from a local businessman with a computer question regarding a strange pop-up that just appeared on his computer.

I personally received this same pop-up about three days ago. Then a day later I received a more alarming pop-up.

The first pop-up is a full screen that uses typical Microsoft light blue and dark blue colors. It looks very Microsoft official.

It is gently worded for a likely ramsom-ware message. It says something like, “Microsoft has determined that your computer may be infected by a virus.”

Then it will give an instruction about clicking a button or calling some number to get relief. Don't do it!

Definitely DO NOT hit the upper-right “close this window” X that we're all familiar with. This is because the bad guys have learned to re-wire that X to say “OK” instead of saying “Close.”

Another virus warning came a day later. It was very rude. A loud voice came over my speakers as the screen appeared. A huge red X displayed on the monitor and a voice demanded that I do nothing except call an 800 number ... or my hard drive would be erased. (That's a good reason to frequently back up your boot drive.)

This is ramsom-ware at its best. Had I called the 800 number, the villain will offer to clean my computer of the virus for $500 or $1,000.

I've read some computer-related news stories where huge companies with millions of dollars of accounts receivable have paid the ransom fee of $500 or $1,000 rather than lose millions of dollars of assets in their bookkeeping software balances.

My remedy is to immediately power-down the computer. Either hit the power switch or unplug it from the AC outlet on the wall. Then turn it back on. Everything should be back to normal.

Absolutely DO NOT go through your normal shut-down routine of clicking the start button in the lower left corner and clicking “power off” from the choices. Some versions of Windows have the power-off button in the upper right. It doesn't matter where it is located, ignore it and unplug your machine.

So why didn't your installed anti-virus protection spring into action and give you a warning? That's because you were looking at a video screen only, and you had not yet clicked a triggering action ... such as hitting X in the upper right corner or some other mouse-driven action.

I don't know how long this technique will continue to work until the bad guys figure out a way to launch their mischief in parallel of the video warning coming up. At least for the time-being, it has always worked for me.

Finally, after you reboot your computer, it might be wise to run your antivirus or anti-malware program as a precaution. I've done that with no results. I attribute that to the effectiveness of the immediate power down action.