Report: The Safe Way to Close Suspicious Popups

[George Tyndall]

Do NOT Click the X Box on Suspicious Popups or anywhere else in the popup as doing so may compromise one's machine.

Instead:

1. Right click the taskbar at the bottom of your desktop.
2. Select Task Manager.
3. On the Applications Tab, highlight your browser's name.
4. Click on End Task.

This will safely close the browser and the pop-up.

[Dave McElderry]

Good advice George. Many popups can be safely closed by using Alt+F4, which bypasses the need to click anywhere. This key combination will close the active ("in focus") window in most cases. If a popup is made with the specific intent of not letting you close it, your suggestion should always work.

[George Tyndall]

Many popups can be safely closed by using Alt+F4, which bypasses the need to click anywhere. This key combination will close the active ("in focus") window in most cases.

That's also good to know, as one may not wish to close all of one's browser windows.

[Chuck Engels]

Some of the worst out there right now are the fake anti virus pop ups. We have gotten very good at removing them here at work but for someone without any experience those malicious things can totally wreck someone's computer. Just a reminder, don't click on pop ups unless you know what they are. Especially don't click on anything that says "You Have A Virus" while you are surfing the internet. In the case of the fake anti virus, clicking on anything will install it on your machine, use John or George's method of closing the browser, great tips guys

[VernonRobinson]

Many popups can be safely closed by using Alt+F4...

The Alt+F4 may not be the safest way to close a box. The primary reason is that the application has to pick up the keystroke and process it. This means that the bad guys can now execute their code. We routinely hook the Alt+F4 or "Close Event" to prevent users from incorrectly shutting down an application with open database files. I believe the safest way to shutdown unwanted pop-ups is to use Task Manager as mentioned. The shutdown then bypasses the application and is being done at the system level as George previously mentioned.

[Dave McElderry]

The Alt+F4 may not be the safest way to close a box. The primary reason is that the application has to pick up the keystroke and process it. This means that the bad guys can now execute their code. We routinely hook the Alt+F4 or "Close Event" to prevent users from incorrectly shutting down an application with open database files. I believe the safest way to shutdown unwanted pop-ups is to use Task Manager as mentioned. The shutdown then bypasses the application and is being done at the system level as George previously mentioned.

Gee, and all of these years I've gotten away with using Alt-F4 and never had a single problem. Maybe it just pays to have a good anti-malware program. Thanks for the heads-up Vernon.

[Ted]

This is all very good information to know; thanks very much for sharing it.

[Chuck Engels]

I have had way too many infected computers at work lately, all with the Fake AntiVirus.
It can be removed and I do have a good working method although it takes some time.

I first use a small free program called MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition to rewrite the MBR.
If you don't do this you will never get rid of the virus. This has to be done while the hard drive is connected to another machine so you have to remove the hard drive from the infected machine and put it in some type of enclosure.
I recommend using a spare PC just in case that one becomes infected also, this can happen so don't use your Primary PC for cleaning viruses from hard drives. The infected drive can infect another drive if this process is not followed properly.

Once the MBR (Master Boot Record) has been rewritten you can then scan and clean the hard drive.
I use Super Anti Spyware first with Microsoft Security Essentials running in the background. Then clean with Malwarebytes and then again with Super Anti Spyware.

I then put the drive back into the original machine and boot up, should boot fine. Then I use the additional tools in Super Anti Spyware to restore the System Restore Functionality and finally Restore the system to a date before the virus was installed. I then scan one more time with Super Anti Spyware and Malwarebytes just to be safe.

This has worked 19 out of 20 times, one machine could not be cleaned. It has worked with many variations of the Fake Antivirus Virus. All tools used to do the cleaning are free except for the drive enclosure of course. This is what we use at work to connect the drives quickly and easily

http://www.byteccusa.com/product/adapte ... BT-300.htm

Software:
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-par ... nager.html
http://www.superantispyware.com/
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

[George Tyndall]

I have had way too many infected computers at work lately, all with the Fake AntiVirus.

How to avoid to begin with, Chuck?

[Chuck Engels]

Don't visit websites you don't know or haven't been referred to by someone that has visited them.
You can always Google a site first or just stay away from anything suspicious. Good anti virus and spyware help, we have Microsoft Security Essentials, Super Anti Spyware and Avast all running and haven't been hit with anything in a long time. Still, caution is the best medicine in this case.