Any computer gurus here?

[Bret4207]

Got the ransomwear email. What the heck are you supposed to do? Ignore it? I haven't been anywhere "sketchy" except some Russian You Tube videos on tractors and such. Not like I'm jumping from porn site to porn site. Is it just my computer or a system?

 

[Hawk]

I have had good luck hitting control, alt, delete buttons, all at the same time.
That will bring up the Task Manager and allow you to shut down your Internet program.
If the internet program will not shut down, you can shut down your entire computer from there.
Do you use a good anti-virus program? They are sorta expensive, but in my opinion, worth it.

 

[Bret4207]

Thx bud, but it hasn't kicked in yet. I just saw what i thought was an email from my wife and opened it. Now I'm concerned I'm going to get locked out. If it's just this laptop it 's no big deal as I hate it anyway but if it's all my passworded accts, that's different. I don't know squat about this stuff except they are a pain.

 

[Hawk]

Sounds like you need more expertise than I have.
I'm sure someone else on the board will chime in.

 

[Rick]

I get those about once a month, it's a scam. Most want you contact them with your bank info to make a payment to them. Do not do that, do not even contact them. Worried is exactly how they want you. Simply delete it even if you need to reboot the puter to do it.

Another one I get a couple of times a year says that they hacked my puter and have all of my email address contact info. It goes on to say that they have also used the camera on my puter to video record me masturbating while watching porn sites and if I don't pay $2,000 by a certain date they will send this video of me to every single contact in my email program. Not very difficult to see it as a scam. 1> I have never visited a porn site. 2> Haven't had personal relations with Mary and her four daughters since about the 6th grade, well before computers. 3> There has been a piece of tape over the camera lens since the day I got the computer, 4> Obviously I never contacted them much less sent them money and not a single person in my email address book has gotten such a video.

 

[Bret4207]

Rick, the 2nd one is about what I got. And I don't go to porn sites either. I did get researching and one of the big names mentioned as a way to stop and fix this stuff is Malwarebytes. As it happend I tried Malwarebytes free trial a couple months ago and uninstalled it when they started wanting money. Now I get this message and the company I iddn't pay is "the cure". Curious. Also got a "Your acct is suspended from my sole CC company" with a PDF attached. Didn't open that one but called the company and said send the email to their fraud dept as my acct was fine with a 0 balance. I think I must have picked up a bug and gotten in the sights of these guys. Of course they want far more money than I have in my checking acct, so that ain't happening. Makes me nervous though.

 

[fiver]

screw e'm.
I got like 2 names in my e-mail book thingy, one of them is google for my never used e-mail account I opened with them to get an account for a web forum.
they could steal my pass words I guess, and make some pretty poor posts on some gun sites, not that anybody would know the difference.

 

[Jeff H]

Rick, the 2nd one is about what I got. And I don't go to porn sites either.

You don't have to. Much of this is random - "phishing." They're lazy and send millions of inquiries automatically in hopes that one in a million will "bite."

I did get researching and one of the big names mentioned as a way to stop and fix this stuff is Malwarebytes. As it happend I tried Malwarebytes free trial a couple months ago and uninstalled it when they started wanting money.

Companies use their free stuff to give you a sample. Some people just keep using the "sample" and renewing it. You'll get hit up for money every time but most let you keep renewing for the free version anyway.

Now I get this message and the company I iddn't pay is "the cure". Curious. Also got a "Your acct is suspended from my sole CC company" with a PDF attached.

They don't know that. It's like an interrogation technique where the detective starts telling you things about yourself and makes you believe he's got your life history. Actually, that's not so hard these days though. The scammers follow the path of least resistance though, so they've got nothing - they just try to make you think they do to get you to tell them things you shouldn't.

Didn't open that one but called the company and said send the email to their fraud dept as my acct was fine with a 0 balance.

Two thumbs up!

I think I must have picked up a bug and gotten in the sights of these guys. Of course they want far more money than I have in my checking acct, so that ain't happening. Makes me nervous though.

You can get these e-mails without having a "bug." It's just like the phone scammers which are on a full-scale assault right now. This is partially just because your e-mail address is "out there," but isn't helped by entities who irresponsibly lose control of your personal data (State/Federal Govv't, Military, health insurance companies and medical providers - and it's happened to me by every one of those entities at least once and several times with some) and blame whoever hacked them. No consequences for them - so no incentive other than potential PR damage.

I messed this up. I commented within your quote. You'll have to "expand" what I quoted if interested in my individual comments to parts of what you said. Sorry.

 

[Rick]

That's exactly what they want Bret, you nervous to the point of having the nervous dribbles. It's a scam mostly from Asia and Africa. They use robots to search the web and hone in on any open connection they can find and then pop that crappolla on your screen hoping to find the person dumb enough to bite. I just reboot the puter and then use my anti virus software to run a full system scan.

 

[Jeff H]

And, sorry for butting in where you asked Rick. He probably knows way more about it than I do (see his post just previous this one), but these people really, really irk me. Lazy, thieving,.... I can't say that part here.

 

[DougGuy]

My advice would be to get a cheap used Dell laptop with an intel quad core cpu and nvidia graphics on it, load linux mint onto it and see how you like it. It will get you away from winblowz and away from the vulnerabilities that come with all M$ products.

 

[Rick]

Jeff, robo phone calls have been way down here for all of this year. So far. Only been getting one or two a day which is nothing compared to the 8-10 a day last year. It's the reason I never answer the phone if I don't recognize the name or number. If it's a legit call they can leave a message but somehow they never do. One of my favorite robo calls that use a masked phone number in an attempt to fool you into thinking it's a local call is that the exchange number here of 580 is fairly new, they have only issued 580 numbers starting with 0 and are a long way from using all of them. When the phone rings and it says it's from 580-7500 or whatever well duh? Ya think that just might be a masked number?

 

[Cherokee]

Control+Alt+Delete, then Task Manager to close internet works for me every time.

 

[Rick]

And, sorry for butting in where you asked Rick. He probably knows way more about it than I do (see his post just previous this one), but these people really, really irk me. Lazy, thieving,.... I can't say that part here.

Butting in? What's butting in? It's an open forum, everyone is welcome to join in. The only real question is how did we get to 12 posts without any thread drift. Now that's amazing.

 

[Bass Ackward]

OK, sense we got the problem diagnosed, I have a question for Bret. What porn sites ARE you visiting?

 

[Bret4207]

Thanks guys. I want to go to a Linux system as I hate Windows, especially Win 10, but doing it is beyond my abilities.

Bass, not a one. I'm pretty boring!

This is actually nothing new really. My 15 year old daughter gets credit card offers all the time. Somehow here name got out there and here we are!

 

[RBHarter]

I used to win lotteries all over the world .
So I'd write a new email "dude that's awesome ! You take that fee out of the winnings and take yourself another $10,000 just cause your awesome . Send me what's left over ." Ya know I'm still waiting for the bag o cash , cashier's check etc . Bastards probably kept all of my winnings .

 

[Rick]

What is truly sad about all this is that it works. They have been at it for years and if they weren't making big money from it they would have stopped years ago. No shortage of gullible people and that is pretty sad.

 

[DougGuy]

Thanks guys. I want to go to a Linux system as I hate Windows, especially Win 10, but doing it is beyond my abilities.

It's much easier than you think, and the easiest linux to go from windows to linux on. You download an iso, you use a free program called Etcher to burn the iso file to a bootable usb stick, you find a donor computer or you buy a cheap SSD drive and use it to install linux on by booting off the usb stick. You can actually run linux mint just booting off the usb stick, it is fully installed and fully functional it just won't save anything but you are running a full blown instance of linux when you boot off the usb stick. And your windows drive will never know your computer ran linux it doesn't change or install aything unless you click on the Install Linux Mint icon.

 

[freebullet]

Is it just my computer or a system?

I have a hammer. It resolves all known computer issues. Excellent pc diagnostic tool. Wanna borrow it? That's where I'm at with puters