Winodws Update and one of those computer locked message

Question

I clicked on a link on a webpage and it took me to another page, then another page came up over that and it had some red areas and a voice was saying my computer had been locked and I should not shut it down and there was some prompt box that it wanted me to input something....like a username and password. I wasn't really reading it. I just wanted out of there. So I tried to close firefox. It wouldn't close, so I used the the task manager to close it. Then I ran a virus check and nothing was found. So then I decided to restart the PC. It didn't say anything about restarting with updates, but I got a light blue screen that said 30% of updates had been completed, etc. Then when the PC restarted, it said it was completing updates. When I was back in, everything seemed fine. I ran another scan with Webroot and it didn't find anything. But then I brought up the Windows Updates panel, but it says nothing about an update being installed today.

So do you think the Windows update was legitimate? It looked just like all the others I've seen and Webroot isn'f finding anything.  Is there anything else I should do?

I just now clicked on Windows updates and it started to install two more updates, even though it said it had checked today and I was up to date.

I know Windows does seem to install things without telling you. I've been using programs and then suddenly you can't do normal things so then you end up rebooting and it tells you it is finishing updates that you didn't know were being installed.

Also, I did NOT click on anything on that website that came up. I just use the taskmgr to force firefox to close. But of course when I reopened firefox, it took me right back there, so I had to force it to close again.

It just seems odd that there was a windows update without any notification and then it doesn't show anything in Windows Updates about it. Although with Microsoft, why should it seem odd?

Just want to know if I can consider myself safe, or if I should do anything else.

(I also had some trouble logging into this site. I had to reset my password. I looked it up and it seems like I was typing it correctly. Has anything changed there.)

Thanks.

TripleHelix · Accepted Answer

Hello @Kev914

I have seen this issue last week and had to do the same thing to shut down Firefox via Task Manager but when I restarted Firefox it didn't come back and I forget how i got there in the first place.

It's so called scare tactic web page that pops up by clicking on a link. But with you when you open Firefox it goes right back to that page as you say so I would suggest that you Submit a Support Ticket and ask them for a security check to make sure you are malware free and give you a piece of mind. https://www.google.com/search?sa=N&q=scare+tactic+web+page&tbm=isch&source=univ&client=firefox-b-d&ved=2ahUKEwjZjrOVytrgAhVK64MKHdfRBao4ChCwBHoECAIQAQ&biw=1920&bih=893#imgrc=_

If you can't get Firefox to behave you might want to do a clean reinstall of Firefox but wait till you here back from Webroot Support.

Thanks,

Kev914 · Answer

Thanks, Daniel, for your response.

Firefox only went back to the same website twice. I have seen it do it as many as 5 times. I guess it is a feature. They think they are helping you because Firefox has crashed and they want you to be able to continue with what you were doing.

Before your response, I decided to download the free version of Malwarebytes. I follow the instructions to exclude each other files as describe in a post in the Webroot forums. When I ran Malwarebytes, it came up with nothing either.

Good, so are you still getting redirected when you open Firefox? Here is some good info: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1182289

Winodws Update and one of those computer locked message

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