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Public Service Announcement || A Warning

Oh my goodness, you guys, yesterday I had a total freak out moment.  I was working on a blog post for Friday, looking up pictures to use, when out of nowhere I get a message that says my computer has been compromised.  The message looked legit. There was a phone number to call, supposedly to a Windows Support Center.  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.  I was absolutely sick.  I have seen news stories about computer hackers who take over your computer and the only way to get your files back is to pay them thousands of dollars.  Now, I have nothing that important on my computer so they can just have it if that ever happens but still, it made me sick and feel so violated.

I called the phone number just to see what was up and a man with a foreign accent answered.  I told him about the message on my computer and he said the only way to fix it was to give him access to my computer.  Hello, red flag!  I asked him how I knew I could trust him and he got lippy with me and asked who else I could trust to fix this.  Another red flag.  I just knew this was a scam.  I hung up immediately and grabbed my cell phone to start changing all of my financial passwords.

I could not close out the browser screen I had up that was showing the message but I could toggle over to Outlook which was a good sign, this virus attack hadn't completely locked up my computer.

After that I called our internet provider and talked to technical support.  They had me immediately shut down my computer.  Then I restarted it.  The message was gone and everything worked correctly.  The guy told me I had narrowly escaped the virus but to make sure to run my virus protection just to be sure.

I was shaking so bad after all of this, my stomach was upset.  I felt so violated!  It was an awful feeling and I can't believe I came so close to being taken over like that.

I wanted to share with all of you so if you ever get a similar message you know not to call the number on the screen and to immediately shut down your computer.  I am lucky enough to know that those numbers usually lead you to danger, not help, so was on top of things and didn't trust that man.

Oh, and I deleted the post I was working on for tomorrow so I'll be typing up a new one -- without the images!


5 comments:

  1. Geez, scary stuff. While I don't have any nuclear passwords on my computer, it was SUCK to lose my pictures and files. This just reminded me to put backing my computer up on my to do list so thank you! Glad all is well now!

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  2. I've heard about this before! Happened to my uncle and luckily my cousin was there and was like NO THIS IS A SCAM!

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  3. HOLY SCARY!!!
    My dad fell victim to an email scam not too long ago. He said it looked like a legit message from Apple. But, he didn't catch the red flags. He even handed over his SS number! My parents then quickly realized what had happened, and immediately had to get LifeLock - which isn't cheap.
    Ugh. Why do people like these scammers have to exist?!

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  4. That is scary. I would lose 1000's of picture. I really need to get them off there but they fill up flash drives so quickly.

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