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!