Interpol Department of Cybercrime scam

[Guest]

Had a bit of a scare yesterday; was browsing the net for info on my F-14 Tomcat, when a very official looking screen suddenly appeared warning me that I had violated copyright material, and Interpol was tracking me down using my IP address. The screen also advised that my computer was blocked unless I paid a £100 fine. I shut down the computer, and on re-booting had the same message appear. I shut down the computer again. I should add I am religious about secutity, I have the full McAfee BT NetProtect Plus; I keep my Windows up to date, and run full scans with McAfee and Windows Defender frequently.

Suspecting a scam I went on my laptop and browsed for this scam and sure enough there was plenty of websites addressing this issue and suggesting advice. However I chose my own solution, I re-booted in Safe Mode and ran a full McAfee scan, which came up with two visuses. Upon re-booting the same screen came up again, so I re-booted in safe mode again, and ran the Windows Restore software to a restore point 48 hrs prior. This solved the problem, computer is running normal now.

A lot of the websites eventually want you to download expensive software to fix the issue, but the above solution worked for me on Windows 7/ Explorer 9.

Cheers Derek

[stona]

I had a similar thing allegedly from the Metropolitan Police a while back. It said I had been viewing all sorts of illegal sites so I knew instantly that it was a scam. It took some getting rid of,though I managed it with freely available software.

At the time I was using McAfee too. I've never had that infection on a machine protected by the much maligned Norton (Symantec).

Cheers

Steve

[yak face]

Dept of cybercrime!!!! Jeez i would be expecting Robocop to be kicking my door in any minute!!, Glad you got it sorted derek and thanks for the heads up and solution (although if I get it I'll be asking my son to sort it out !!!LOL) cheers tony

[Guest]

nice one m8.

thx

jeff.

[Guest]

I think the key thing is to unplug your internet connection before running a scan.

[Guest]

i had one from yorkshire police a month ago

[stona]

They are all versions of the Ukash virus.

A quick google will turn up loads of info.

A combination of rkill and malwarebytes got rid of mine.

Cheers

Steve

[mossiepilot]

Thanks for the heads up Derek.

Tony.

[Guest]

if I can offer my experience, ie running a computer company prior to my easy life now.

there is a piece of software called "spybot search & destroy". when installed on your computer it will scan ( in the background with a minute cpu load) the pc for adware, malware and other "drop in" file formats such as this one mentioned. you can run a full scan with the software and remove all problems manually also.

its a valuable bit of kit ... just make sure you down load it from a secure site via a server mirror and not a link or you'll get additional software in the package that other people have put in it and then can be as much of a pain as some of the adware.

[mossiepilot]

If I may borrow your thread Derek, can I ask you and Colin, I use AVG free and if I load spybot will it clash with AVG. I'm also security conscious and want the best (free) security I can get, but don't want to overload the CPU.

Sorry for using your thread but it seemed a good time to ask.

Tony.

[Guest]

avg and spybot are compatible so no worries there,and the free version does a good job,the only real advice is to scan your pc once a week keeping it clean,there are lots of muppets around who take pleasure doing this to people,i should know i was one of them,only my virus kept opening peoples cd drives only lol.i hate real virus senders especially the ones that float in on emails yuk

mobear

[Guest]

+1 for spybot & malware bytes. Good bits of kit.

[Guest]

+2

[Guest]

I use AVG myself and run spybot regularly on the file server we have, there is no clash of software at all. spybot runs almost invisibly in the back ground.

[mossiepilot]

Thanks guys, I've just downloaded spybot and run a scan, all clear.

Feel more secure now.

Thanks again.

Tony.