Is This Popup a Virus?

[mckenzie55301]

For several months I have been getting these popus in Chrome, a sort of rectagle with rounded courners that advertising various things with an a button that takes you to the site or a button with an x that closes the window. One time it was something I was interested in and I chose to visit the site and IMMEDIATELY when I said OK a window poped up that I could not close saying I had a virus and to call a number to get rid of it (Just like you'd expect from ransomware and I immediatly shut down my computer and restarted and did a system restore just to be safe, but I keep seeing those windows pop up from time to time and I just keep closing them. Why is my Avast not seeing and blocking them?

[Nunzio77]

Most likely they are not viruses but popups from some website.

Try clearing your browsing cache in Chrome.

Also, paste this link into Chrome's address bar: chrome://settings/content/notifications
and check below that there is no suspicious site from which these popups start and delete it.

[MrDJ]

was the popup similar to this (safe video on youtube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s23XR8JMKtA
if similar its a total scam popup thats been spoofed by an indian call centre.
also have you got a add blocker on your pc. something like ABP add blocker extention is worth installing to block a lot of these fake popups.

[mckenzie55301]

What concerns me is these popups seem to be appearing randomly and when I visit respected websites, often when I let a page stay idle when I step away from the computer and come back and find it sitting there. The image is always advertising something, but what makes these popups "unique" is there generic appearance - again a white window with rounded corners with text only - when it happens again I'll post an image. It's not like I visit "questioable" sites often - but and they don't have the traditonal "X" to close the window, I get two buttons like "go to site" and the other says "close". This has been happening for months and I have CCC etc.

When I did try to follow the link, it really did appear my computer was hijacked - IMMEDIATLY - the image was full screen, I could not close the window or access my tool bar, and ctrl-alt-del did nothing - my only option was to immedlatly shut down my computer using the power button - and I followed up as I described above. My computer restarted normally and it appears nothing was done to my computer, all my files etc are still there etc. It's just that annyong pop-up that randomly appears maybe once or twice a week - next time it happens maybe I'll take a screen shot and post it along with a new post here.

[Nunzio77]

Try doing a second opinion scan with Hitman Pro and-or Norton Power Erase.
You can download the tool Free from the internet and installation is not necessary.

[RedFan]

You could also try :

https://www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner

[mckenzie55301]

Thanks for the link. This was one of the first things I thought of because in the past when my virus protection did not catch something, Malewarebytes standalone malware scanner did the trick. I went to there website and could not find this and the company wanted me to install their virus software. I ran the scanner in your link and it and it found:

PUP.Optional.Legacy - 1 item found
PUP.Optional.RegistryCleaner - 1 item found
PUP.Optional.WebCompanion - 4 items found

And I quarantined them all. I hope that did the trick. I leave on a 3 week vaction tomorrow to various parts of Southeast Asia so I'll have to followup when I get back, but I just found out how to duplcate the error and I I think it may be various websites that are being infefected. Right now it appears to be happening on the MediaBiasFatcheck site. I went there using this link, just wanted some info about Human Events:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/human-events/#google_vignette

In order for the malicious pop-up to appear, you have to leave the tab open a while and be looking at other tabs and after (sometimes long) a time, go back to that tab and you might see the popup sitting there, it blurs out the page you are on so you can only see the ad. I made a screenshot of the malicious link:

https://imgur.com/a/thG1cV9

The popups "always" look similar, ie a white box with the word "ad" at the top right, very generic looking, and looks like it might be an ad for a legitimate website, in this case Viator. and the only options are Open or Close. I once clicked Open and had the experience I noted above.

If I were not very busy and getting ready for my vacation, I'd click OPEN and see of the ransomware page popped up again successfully highjacking some of the functions of my computer like my disappearing task bar, failure of ctrl-alt-del to work etc as noted above, I just don't have the time right now to continue playing with it.

Maybe it was one of those things Malwarebytesfound.

[mckenzie55301]

Ok, after running the Malwarebytes checker I ran the Norton Power Eraser and it did not find anything. Just FYI

Thanks Guys!