Ok,
This probably is a naïve question, but I have never had a pop up like this before. It is states that it is a windows firewall warning, states that my computer might have a virus, and gives a number to call. If it gave a web address, I guess right away it was a scam, but the fact it gives a number puzzles me a bit. Is this something I should just run my spyware and virus check for, or should I actually call these guys. Lately I have been noticing the scammers have no probably talking to you directly, so it wouldn't surprise me one bit.
Thanks

Google the name and number, and add the word scam. Works for me.

sounds like you have a virus... does it have an amount below it that shows "possible network damage" if you dont call and fix it? whatever you do, dont call that number... they will coax you into giving them remote access and then its all over...

you have a few things you can do depending on your AV/MW protection status...

first thing i would go to http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and either get the free version or the wise choice would be pay the 25 bucks and get the premium version... you can only run scans with the free version, the premium has real time protection that is incredible... i have had zero problems in the last 6 or 7 years using it...

run the scans, do the flash scan then full comp scan, then scan it with your normal AV (if you are using windows defender, i suggest getting another AV), if you dont have one, AVG works great and is free, Avast is another one that is free... i personally dont care for any Norton or McAfee products, Kaspersky is good but spendy...

http://www.avg.com/us-en/homepage

my neighbor recently had to deal with this, and he stupidly called the number and was told that it was 400+ dollars for the man over the phone to fix it, then when he said he wasnt paying, the icons on his desktop started disappearing and things started getting deleted... i came in right when it was almost too late and saved his ass luckily...

so my advice is to do what i said above, and stay off the phone...

Sounds like a scam. Happened to me before. After researching how to get rid of the garbage it became clear that to truly be sure it is gone a hard drive reformat is required. Not fun. You can try windows defender, spybot - search & destroy and malwarebytes. I have heard good things about kapersky but haven't used it myself. You may want to update the antivirus program and then restart in safe mode without networking.

Thanks evo,
Figured it was a scam, was sure when it wouldn't let me exit out. I will run the virus scan and see what happens. I have been lucky so far. The only one I got was a Tupac virus, years ago. Popup kept popping up asking me if I wanted to send flowers to Tupac's mom on the anniversary of his death, which was coming up. Ignored it and then on his birthday a pop up jumped on the screen and called me a heartless jerk and didn't I know jerks like me had to pay. Instantly the system crashed. Don't remember how I fixed it, and it was a pain in the but to deal with, but I still kind of see a bit of humor in it.

if you need to format the drive, a regular format doesnt always work, you need to do a low level format, you can get tools and such online to do it, i think Seagate makes one...

sounds like it might be a Heartbleed variant possibly, which the only way to get rid of that is to as Parker says "nuke" it, but you need to low level format it for it to truely be gone... low level is how HDD's are shipped from the factory, all numbers in the HDD code are re written as 0's, it destroys boot sectors and everything so that nothing can attach and stick around, regular formats dont do that, they leave boot sectors and other code line intact and if the virus is attached to that it will not be removed....


and you should have sent Afeni some flowers, ya jerk

Nuke it from orbit and start again. It's the only way to be sure.

Or, get a Mac.

It's "hostage ware"....a form of malware.....not a virus.
They will probably try to sell you some lame "AntiVirus software" that will disable their pop-up but do little else.

Don't know what your AV or AS is but two good freebies are Avast! (AV) and Malwarebytes (AS).
They play well together and should be able to take care of your pop up issue.

Free anti-virus software = you get what you pay for. Kaspersky.........no problems.

Completely untrue.
Non-IT types have been parroting this for years.
Most of the freebies offer a paid version just with more bells/whistles.

Kaspersky is heavy and some don't like it for that reason.
It does generally have good detection rates but the AV that I mentioned above has similar, sometimes better detection rates in testing....and it's lighter.

Kaspersky is also a Russian product....you know those people that just flew a bomber formation at our border a few days ago to test our military's detection rate.

Couple weeks ago I got a Rockettab pop up. It pops up ads over legitimate ads and I can't get rid of it.

Parker?

This IT guy who happens to work in Info Security uses a freebie called Avast on all my personal PC's and phones. its the most lightweight AV in terms of resource consumption in my experience, and keeps me bug and malware free, for free.

I also have Avast on all my machines...no problems at all, and free.

Fish on...

Todd