Road rules5 mins ago
Security Error Code
4 Answers
While watching a video advertised on facebook a pop up appeared and told me my laptop was infected and need to phone a number,the laptop was frozen and i could not log off the page so i turned the whole thing off and restarted and it was fine,i`m assuming this is some kind of scam and wondered if anyone has any advice on this Security error code ?
Answers
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This is known as "ransomware". They hold you to "ransom".
The software will often block the whole screen and say you should phone a number to "pay" for it to be removed.
Some of these are worse than others. In your case it looks like a reboot has got rid of it (though it may still be lurking on your computer to reappear at a later date).
Others stay on screen all the time and no amount of reboots can get rid of them. These can be very nasty and are difficult to get rid of.
Some suggestions:
Download Malwarebytes Free Edition and run that to see if it is still there (untick the box at the end of the Malwarebytes install to say you DONT want the "Pro" edition you have to pay for)
If on Windows set up a "spare" Windows userid (easy to do) so that if you get ransomware you still have a spare userid you can logon with.
Always make sure your personal files are backed up in case you need to do a complete Windows reinstall.
Take an "image" of your computer hard disk (there are lots of products around that can do this). Then if your PC does become infected you can do a complete restore from this image.
I can reinstall Windows in about 10 minutes on my PC from one of these images.
Also make sure you have good security software on your computer and that it is up to date and you run it regularly.
The software will often block the whole screen and say you should phone a number to "pay" for it to be removed.
Some of these are worse than others. In your case it looks like a reboot has got rid of it (though it may still be lurking on your computer to reappear at a later date).
Others stay on screen all the time and no amount of reboots can get rid of them. These can be very nasty and are difficult to get rid of.
Some suggestions:
Download Malwarebytes Free Edition and run that to see if it is still there (untick the box at the end of the Malwarebytes install to say you DONT want the "Pro" edition you have to pay for)
If on Windows set up a "spare" Windows userid (easy to do) so that if you get ransomware you still have a spare userid you can logon with.
Always make sure your personal files are backed up in case you need to do a complete Windows reinstall.
Take an "image" of your computer hard disk (there are lots of products around that can do this). Then if your PC does become infected you can do a complete restore from this image.
I can reinstall Windows in about 10 minutes on my PC from one of these images.
Also make sure you have good security software on your computer and that it is up to date and you run it regularly.
To answer your specific question about the "security error code".
This was almost certainly a "made up" code or error by the people who wrote the ransomware.
These people pretend you have an error (or virus or other problem) on your computer to scare you in to phoning them to fix it.
If you get ANY sort of window like this saying you have problems on your computer it is a scam.
DON'T phone anyway and DON'T pay out any money to anyone (or give them your credit card or other bank details).
Sadly the internet is a bit like the old "wild west" and you have to be on your guard all the time for scammers and criminals.
This was almost certainly a "made up" code or error by the people who wrote the ransomware.
These people pretend you have an error (or virus or other problem) on your computer to scare you in to phoning them to fix it.
If you get ANY sort of window like this saying you have problems on your computer it is a scam.
DON'T phone anyway and DON'T pay out any money to anyone (or give them your credit card or other bank details).
Sadly the internet is a bit like the old "wild west" and you have to be on your guard all the time for scammers and criminals.
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