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This just showed up in Chrome.

It's obviously phishing - the mangled English and weird url give it away. How would it work? Asking me for info I shouldn't give them?

My system then slowed down. Reboot asked to check files so I did.

Restarted in safe mode with network. Backed up files to another place.

McAfee status OK.

Need I worry about how they managed to hijack my NY Times page to display this?

Need I worry?

enter image description here

Ethan Bolker
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    Possible duplicate of [How do you explain the necessity of "nuke it from orbit" to management and users?](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/24195/how-do-you-explain-the-necessity-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-to-management-and-users) – Neil Smithline Apr 07 '18 at 02:23
  • `This just showed up in Chrome` is unfortunately not enough information to give a meaningful assessment of your situation. We would need more details. – Tom K. Apr 07 '18 at 12:38
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    I don't know why there are close votes for the "nuke it from orbit" question. I can't see any reason for this other than it being a snide way to say "you should nuke it from orbit" (which is _really_ silly advice for a phishing attempt). – forest Apr 10 '18 at 04:16

3 Answers3

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Answering my own question, so it doesn't remain unanswered and may help others.

I thought nuking from space (as suggested) might be overkill. I asked friends and got this advice, which I took:

Googling: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_other-protect_scanning-windows_10/virus-warning-big-red-page-wanting-me-to-call/b451426e-1408-40ff-b171-4c83a149b761

Did you visit Yahoo at some point in that browser session ... ? (No)

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-security/google-chrome-critical-error/92ddd0e1-b860-4d63-b6af-f8a5da2c159f

Suggests accidentally clicking on an ad as a cause, and suggests installing an adblocker (and clearing browser history) as a solution.

I also recommend running a complete virus scan before you do anything else after you clean cache and cookies.

The problem has not recurred.

Ethan Bolker
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Not sure if this is a full solution, but Chrome has a Malware Scanner built in: chrome://settings/cleanup

From Google's support page for the Cleanup tool: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2765944?visit_id=637033241183707988-3142379722&p=chrome_cleanup_tool&hl=en&rd=2

If you're seeing some of these problems with Chrome, you might have unwanted software or malware installed on your computer:

  • Pop-up ads and new tabs that won't go away
  • Your Chrome homepage or search engine keeps changing without your permission
  • Unwanted Chrome extensions or toolbars keep coming back
  • Your browsing is hijacked, and redirects to unfamiliar pages or ads
  • Alerts about a virus or an infected device
Community
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rmutalik
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There are two ways to deal with this.

  1. Reset the browser settings to default and physically set the home page to www.google.com. If that doesn't work, you will need to reinstall Google Chrome.
  2. Run a program called Autoruns and delete the hijacking tab.
ds_secret
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