I realize I made some boner decisions to get myself into this mess.
I usually use Edge and Malwarebytes and I've never had any problems with it and like it a lot. I started having problems with my computer becoming slow while i was playing a game on Facebook. I have been playing this same game for over a year with out problem. The symptoms were that the game started out fine but then got slower until it was unusable.
In a "blond moment" I turned off Malwarebytes and decided to turn on Windows Defender. Here is where it got interesting.
I got a screen that said that my Microsoft license had expired and there were a lot of other text but it said it in big bold letters, "Your computer will be locked". When I saw that I immediately thought I had had a Ransomware attack. Then it started opening tab after tab with the same screen with the same text as the first screen. It also had an audio voice that said that my Microsoft license had expired, etc. While the browser was open the only thing that worked was the cursor. I was going to do a CTR-Alt-Delete to go to the Task Manager but couldn't even do that.
I immediately powered down my computer. When I turned it back on. I had complete control again. As long as I didn't open the browser, I had control. I noticed that I had an old ESET installer on my drive so I installed it and did a full scan of my drive. It found nothing. I also did a rootkit scan with the Malwarebytes program. It found nothing.
It dawned on me that if there were no viruses on my hard drive, it must be coming from the outside. I then disconnected my internet connection and then I could open a browser without it taking over.
I reinstalled Malwarebytes immediately and now everything is pretty much back to normal. The only odd thing is that if I start Edge, it opens with all those tabs still showing at the top but within the pages say "Can't make connection".
I was wondering if anyone knows what kind of "virus" this might have been. I'm just curious because I've never had anything like this.
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tompkin
I realize I made some boner decisions to get myself into this mess.
I usually use Edge and Malwarebytes and I've never had any problems with it and like it a lot. I started having problems with my computer becoming slow while i was playing a game on Facebook. I have been playing this same game for over a year with out problem. The symptoms were that the game started out fine but then got slower until it was unusable.
In a "blond moment" I turned off Malwarebytes and decided to turn on Windows Defender. Here is where it got interesting.
I got a screen that said that my Microsoft license had expired and there were a lot of other text but it said it in big bold letters, "Your computer will be locked". When I saw that I immediately thought I had had a Ransomware attack. Then it started opening tab after tab with the same screen with the same text as the first screen. It also had an audio voice that said that my Microsoft license had expired, etc. While the browser was open the only thing that worked was the cursor. I was going to do a CTR-Alt-Delete to go to the Task Manager but couldn't even do that.
I immediately powered down my computer. When I turned it back on. I had complete control again. As long as I didn't open the browser, I had control. I noticed that I had an old ESET installer on my drive so I installed it and did a full scan of my drive. It found nothing. I also did a rootkit scan with the Malwarebytes program. It found nothing.
It dawned on me that if there were no viruses on my hard drive, it must be coming from the outside. I then disconnected my internet connection and then I could open a browser without it taking over.
I reinstalled Malwarebytes immediately and now everything is pretty much back to normal. The only odd thing is that if I start Edge, it opens with all those tabs still showing at the top but within the pages say "Can't make connection".
I was wondering if anyone knows what kind of "virus" this might have been. I'm just curious because I've never had anything like this.
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