Malicious pop up?

[sb67]

I was on here earlier and a pop up screen took over my browser advising me my windows was damaged, it was accompanied by a high pitched noise and I was unable to get rid of it unless I used ctrl alt delete and shut my browser down, I didn't leave it on the screen long enough to get any details. This has happened 3 times now over the last 2 weeks and only when on RMweb. Has this happened to anybody else? I've ran a virus check and nothing has shown up.

Steve.

[AY Mod]

No other reports of such Steve.

 

I'd suggest installing and running Malwarebytes - https://www.malwarebytes.com/

[cctransuk]

13 minutes ago, sb67 said:

I was on here earlier and a pop up screen took over my browser advising me my windows was damaged, it was accompanied by a high pitched noise and I was unable to get rid of it unless I used ctrl alt delete and shut my browser down, I didn't leave it on the screen long enough to get any details. This has happened 3 times now over the last 2 weeks and only when on RMweb. Has this happened to anybody else? I've ran a virus check and nothing has shown up.

Steve.

 

It happened to me recently - but not on RMweb.

 

It also happened to my wife when using her lap-top; (I use a PC).

 

Regards,

John.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Suggest also that you make sure you have deleted browsing history and cookies.

[Ceptic]

Hmmmm. About half an hour ago I had been looking at peanuts' 'holiday home' topic.

When I tried to return to the forum, the mouse cursor disappeared and I was unable to anything other than pressing Ctl/Alt/Delete. This had no effect, so I had to resort to pressing off the PC power(button) and turning off the Router.

When turning both back on I was confronted by a blank screen and the only sound (of life ?) being the PC's cooling fans.

As a last hope, I pulled out the PC's power feed, waited a couple of minutes, then reconnected, turned on and tuned in.

At last, signs of life.

I've run a McAfee Anti-Virus / Spyware scan. Nothing's shown up.

 

The funny thing is, 1/4 hour prior to this, and again yesterday (and the day before iIrc) a sound alert... Bleeper ?..Blooper ? went off at this end, but with no message attached.  Hmmmm.

[AY Mod]

7 minutes ago, Ceptic said:

About half an hour ago I had been looking at peanuts' 'holiday home' topic.

 

I've been to take a look at that topic which contains a link to booking.com - a site which can launch pop-unders for properties/hotels etc. to try and see if I can replicate anything.

[sb67]

Thanks guys, I've installed Malwarebytes and I'll run that. If it happens again I'll try and get a bit more info.

Steve.

[unravelled]

I've had several variations of this  a few times recently, as far as I know only when on Rmweb. Sorted, for me,  by closing the tab and relaunching rmweb, (I'm using Firefox). Malwarebytes was updated and a scan run, but reported nothing. I had planned to check out a few more things before reporting.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

 

[johndon]

Insert other media It has happened to me four times in the last week (last time was just fifteen minutes ago) and ONLY when browsing RMWeb, in the latest case I was on Wright Writes.  Closing the browser (MS Edge) and going back in solves the problem, at least until the next time. I have Malwarebytes installed and running and on none of the four occasions has it picked anything up...

 

John

Edited May 22, 2019 by johndon

[AY Mod]

23 minutes ago, johndon said:

Insert other media It has happened to me four times in the last week 

 

Do you mean if freezes when you attempt to open the 'Insert other media' window? If so, that's different to the OP's issue.

[johndon]

20 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Do you mean if freezes when you attempt to open the 'Insert other media' window? If so, that's different to the OP's issue.

 

Not sure where 'insert other media' came from, my original post said:

 

It has happened to me four times in the last week (last time was just fifteen minutes ago) and ONLY when browsing RMWeb, in the latest case I was on Wright Writes.  Closing the browser (MS Edge) and going back in solves the problem, at least until the next time. I have Malwarebytes installed and running and on none of the four occasions has it picked anything up...

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

6 hours ago, sb67 said:

I was on here earlier and a pop up screen took over my browser advising me my windows was damaged, it was accompanied by a high pitched noise and I was unable to get rid of it unless I used ctrl alt delete and shut my browser down, I didn't leave it on the screen long enough to get any details. This has happened 3 times now over the last 2 weeks and only when on RMweb. Has this happened to anybody else? I've ran a virus check and nothing has shown up.

Steve.

I've had it three times on RMWeb and a couple of instances elsewhere (albeit without the noise in either situation). I got rid by repeatedly hitting "Esc" and closing the website. Running a scan (MacAfee) didn't turn up anything so I'm guessing it's harmless unless one clicks on the response box.

 

John 

[mark54]

I have the same thing as described by the OP, initially always whilst on RMweb but later on other sites. There was a button to click to resolve the issue, purporting to be Norton. As I have Norton and it was showing clear, I just closed the window and reopened RMweb and all was Ok. I use MS Edge.

 

More recently I just get a pop up saying Malware has been blocked by Norton (and this is recorded in the Norton history),.

[sb67]

My Malwarebytes scan did not  show anything so as you say John maybe it's harmless unless you click on it.

Just to add it's only happened on my laptop, never my i pad.

Steve.

[YesTor]

Hmmm, I have experienced this as well a handful of times over the last couple of weeks or so when opening a topic in a new Firefox tab.  I'll try and get a screenshot if it happens again.

 

 

Edited May 22, 2019 by YesTor

[Classsix T]

9 hours ago, sb67 said:

Just to add it's only happened on my laptop, never my i pad.

Steve.

You don't mention the brand of laptop or installed software Steve, but rather telling that the Apple OS and browser (Safari?) appear unaffected.

No issues here, with Chrome on Android either.

 

C6T. 

[sb67]

29 minutes ago, Classsix T said:

You don't mention the brand of laptop or installed software Steve, but rather telling that the Apple OS and browser (Safari?) appear unaffected.

No issues here, with Chrome on Android either.

 

C6T. 

 

It's a Dell laptop with MS Edge, I haven't tried another browser on here yet.

Steve.

[Ian J.]

15 hours ago, Ceptic said:

Hmmmm. About half an hour ago I had been looking at peanuts' 'holiday home' topic.

When I tried to return to the forum, the mouse cursor disappeared and I was unable to anything other than pressing Ctl/Alt/Delete. This had no effect, so I had to resort to pressing off the PC power(button) and turning off the Router.

When turning both back on I was confronted by a blank screen and the only sound (of life ?) being the PC's cooling fans.

As a last hope, I pulled out the PC's power feed, waited a couple of minutes, then reconnected, turned on and tuned in.

At last, signs of life.

I've run a McAfee Anti-Virus / Spyware scan. Nothing's shown up.

 

The funny thing is, 1/4 hour prior to this, and again yesterday (and the day before iIrc) a sound alert... Bleeper ?..Blooper ? went off at this end, but with no message attached.  Hmmmm.

 

What you're describing sounds more like a hardware freeze up, perhaps due to overheating? If so, it might be a good idea to see if you can clean out any dust build up from around fans and cooling blocks.

[ejstubbs]

7 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

What you're describing sounds more like a hardware freeze up

 

Agree, sounds to me like a system hang.  Pretty rare these days but they do happen.  Given that the only symptom was that the computer became completely unresponsive, and it came back to life after a bit of coaxing, it doesn't sound like anything malicious to me.

[unravelled]

A bit more info. When it happened again, just now, I closed the tab then checked recently closed tabs.The label was  win erx03, which I googled and its a fake virus popup. Plenty of info on removal for various browsers.

 

So far I have only had it pop up on rmweb, but I wonder whether it only affects the first tab. I will demote rmweb and see if it affects other tabs before removal.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[sb67]

 

4 hours ago, unravelled said:

A bit more info. When it happened again, just now, I closed the tab then checked recently closed tabs.The label was  win erx03, which I googled and its a fake virus popup. Plenty of info on removal for various browsers.

 

So far I have only had it pop up on rmweb, but I wonder whether it only affects the first tab. I will demote rmweb and see if it affects other tabs before removal.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

That's interesting Dave, if it happens to me again I'll try the same, how do you check for recently closed tabs?

Steve.

[unravelled]

38 minutes ago, sb67 said:

 

 

That's interesting Dave, if it happens to me again I'll try the same, how do you check for recently closed tabs?

Steve. 

In Firefox it's under "history", which might be a toolbar icon or menu item depending on setup.

 

Dave

[YesTor]

I'm not sure if this helps anyone, users, admin or otherwise, however I just experienced the rogue 'pop-up' once again.  The first screenshot shows the initial pop-up screen, while the second image shows the message when an attempt is made to click away from the affected tab.  Nothing else within the browser or the computer 'freezes-up' as such and the tab can be easily closed and the use of Firefox seems otherwise unaffected.   Perhaps this corresponds with what other users are experiencing:

 

 

 

 

 

cheers

Al

Edited May 28, 2019 by YesTor

[Ian J.]

The grammar and general wording in the messages is pretty poor, so obviously fake. Of course, anyone who isn't knowledgeable, especially younger children, might fall victim to it.

[sb67]

Not exactly the same but along the lines of what I've had. Not had any problems for a bit but something strange happened in the sense that my browser stopped  allowing me to save photos. I got a message saying browser could not save picture, eventually sorted it out by resetting my browser back to it's default settings.

Steve