[Hidden-tech] Can anyone help my mom with a spammy virus?

[Dan Nachbar]

I received a very similar question from a friend with a mac recently.

In her case, the problems started after she installed
a trojan-horse claiming to be a free "scanning" program.
The trojan is now demanding a $69 payment to remove the
porn that it has "discovered".

I advised her to not pay the protection money (if only because
very bad things may happen if she types her credit card number
into this beast) and instead take the machine to one of the local
shops that know about macs.

Dan Nachbar

On May 17, 2011, at 10:41 PM, Shel Horowitz, Ethical/Green Marketing Expert wrote:

>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> She writes:
> 
> At 11:30 PM +0000 5/17/11, gloyoshi at comcast.net wrote:
>> A crazy thing is happning on my computer. I'm getting unasked for, 
>> full pages of graphic porn -- gay, s & M, etc, unasked and 
>> uninvited. It changes my browser to Firefox, also unasked for. 
>> what's going on and do I eliminate it?
> 
> 
> She is on a Mac running OS 10.4. I believe her usual browser is 
> Safari. She's not very tech-savvy, but if anyone has a good idea to 
> try, I can try to help her through it.
> 
> Please Reply to All so she and I are both in the loop.
> 
> Thanks!
> -- 
> 
> _________________________________________________
> Shel Horowitz
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