Computer virus issue..........

54thMA

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Aug 15, 2012
10,148
Westwood MA
I've been watching the Breaking Bad series marathon on AMC, there is an episode where the main character gets found out by his brother in law who works for the DEA, I did search last night to figure out how he figured it out, I clicked in a link...........and my computer went haywire..........YOU HAVE A VIRUS/YOU'RE COMPUTER IS INFECTED!!.........I manually shut it down, rebooted it.

When it came back on, I'm getting annoying pop ups...........YOU HAVE A VIRUS/YOUR VIRUS PROTECTION HAS LAPSED, CLICK HERE TO RESOLVE.

I deleted my browsing history, I ran a deep scan with my virus protection, I checked to see if my pop up guard is on.........all ok, still getting the pop ups.

Any idea what is going on/how to fix it?
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
30,131
I've been watching the Breaking Bad series marathon on AMC, there is an episode where the main character gets found out by his brother in law who works for the DEA, I did search last night to figure out how he figured it out, I clicked in a link...........and my computer went haywire..........YOU HAVE A VIRUS/YOU'RE COMPUTER IS INFECTED!!.........I manually shut it down, rebooted it.

When it came back on, I'm getting annoying pop ups...........YOU HAVE A VIRUS/YOUR VIRUS PROTECTION HAS LAPSED, CLICK HERE TO RESOLVE.

I deleted my browsing history, I ran a deep scan with my virus protection, I checked to see if my pop up guard is on.........all ok, still getting the pop ups.

Any idea what is going on/how to fix it?
If its a Windows machine.....I started heading straight to reverting the hard drive to a time before that search to deal with stuff like that. It was easier in a lot of respects than trying to solve the particular problem. (Others with more expertise may know if that somehow *increases* the chances of a bad outcome.)
 

j44thor

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Aug 1, 2006
10,934
Also never, ever reboot if you think you have been infected, that is how the malware can get deep into the system and rebooting will almost never fix it by itself. Like many applications they need a reboot to complete the install, just because you have a pop up saying you have been infected doesn't mean you are. They are trying to get you to take action either by clicking on a link which will certainly either install something bad or try to steal your credentials or by re-starting your machine so whatever they have downloaded onto your machine already can become fully active and start doing fun things like messing with your registry. If you do reboot you should only do so in safe mode after you have run the virus scans etc.
 

tonyandpals

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Mar 18, 2004
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Also never, ever reboot if you think you have been infected, that is how the malware can get deep into the system and rebooting will almost never fix it by itself. Like many applications they need a reboot to complete the install, just because you have a pop up saying you have been infected doesn't mean you are. They are trying to get you to take action either by clicking on a link which will certainly either install something bad or try to steal your credentials or by re-starting your machine so whatever they have downloaded onto your machine already can become fully active and start doing fun things like messing with your registry. If you do reboot you should only do so in safe mode after you have run the virus scans etc.
I've seen it where they say you're 'infected' and want you to call this number for support. Then they show you your eventlog and act all scared about the yellow/red warnings in there and you pay them to clean it up...
Don't do that :)
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Mar 26, 2005
30,386
Also never, ever reboot if you think you have been infected, that is how the malware can get deep into the system and rebooting will almost never fix it by itself. Like many applications they need a reboot to complete the install, just because you have a pop up saying you have been infected doesn't mean you are. They are trying to get you to take action either by clicking on a link which will certainly either install something bad or try to steal your credentials or by re-starting your machine so whatever they have downloaded onto your machine already can become fully active and start doing fun things like messing with your registry. If you do reboot you should only do so in safe mode after you have run the virus scans etc.
I never knew this, thanks for posting.
 

Max Power

thai good. you like shirt?
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Jul 20, 2005
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Boston, MA
No specific expertise but ran across this article that talks about a slightly different kind of malware - one based on notifications: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/life/columnists/eyal-goldshmid/2022/01/20/computer-help-how-do-get-rid-pop-up-warning-viruses/6575915001/
This is almost certainly correct. Just go into your web browser settings, search for notifications, and reset everything. The annoying pop-ups will go away.

This is also something of a phishing scam rather than a virus. I doubt there's anything that touched any information on your computer.
 

54thMA

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Aug 15, 2012
10,148
Westwood MA
Thanks for the advice everyone; problem solved, it's fine now.

Thanks as well for the advice about not rebooting if you think the computer is infected.
 

Scott Cooper's Grand Slam

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Jul 12, 2008
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New England
To answer the question you searched for:
I've been watching the Breaking Bad series marathon on AMC, there is an episode where the main character gets found out by his brother in law who works for the DEA, I did search last night to figure out how he figured it out,
Just for fun:

Gale (Walt's former partner, who was a chemist cooking for Mr. Fring) was an avid fan of Walt Whitman. Gale recited Whitman poetry to Walt White (the main character). Hank (the brother in law) found the initials "WW" in Gale's notes. Walt and Hank joked about the initials. Hank even said "WW.... what do you think that means? Woodrow Wilson? Willy Wonka? Walter White?"

Walt put his hands up and said -- maybe as a joke, maybe with relief, maybe as a threat -- "you got me."

Then Walt pointed out that WW stood for Walt Whitman, pointing to the poem "When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer" that Gale had inscribed in his notebook. Gale had also recited that poem to Walt from memory, earlier when they were working in the lab.

Gale gave Walt a copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass that he had inscribed "to WW" with a personal note. Walt left the book in his bathroom! Maybe he wanted to be caught. Maybe he was so hubristic that he thought he could leave out a smoking gun and still not be caught. But Hank found the book when he went to the bathroom at Walt's house. Hank noticed the same handwriting in the book and in Gale's notes.

Then Hank flashed back to his previous conversation with Walt. He knew in that moment that Walt knew Gale. He knew that when Walt said "you got me," Walt wasn't joking.
 

54thMA

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Aug 15, 2012
10,148
Westwood MA
Mind sharing how it was resolved?
I had to bring in the heavy artillery; ie, my webmaster, aka, the fixer.

He said something about the pop up was enabled on my computer somehow, it was installed/downloaded and he had to uninstall it, he did it remotely, I tried to follow along as he did it, but he's a computer super genius and he solved in a couple of minutes, he also ran a malware program to make sure there were no other issues.

There was no actual virus to deal with.
 

54thMA

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 15, 2012
10,148
Westwood MA
To answer the question you searched for:


Just for fun:

Gale (Walt's former partner, who was a chemist cooking for Mr. Fring) was an avid fan of Walt Whitman. Gale recited Whitman poetry to Walt White (the main character). Hank (the brother in law) found the initials "WW" in Gale's notes. Walt and Hank joked about the initials. Hank even said "WW.... what do you think that means? Woodrow Wilson? Willy Wonka? Walter White?"

Walt put his hands up and said -- maybe as a joke, maybe with relief, maybe as a threat -- "you got me."

Then Walt pointed out that WW stood for Walt Whitman, pointing to the poem "When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer" that Gale had inscribed in his notebook. Gale had also recited that poem to Walt from memory, earlier when they were working in the lab.

Gale gave Walt a copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass that he had inscribed "to WW" with a personal note. Walt left the book in his bathroom! Maybe he wanted to be caught. Maybe he was so hubristic that he thought he could leave out a smoking gun and still not be caught. But Hank found the book when he went to the bathroom at Walt's house. Hank noticed the same handwriting in the book and in Gale's notes.

Then Hank flashed back to his previous conversation with Walt. He knew in that moment that Walt knew Gale. He knew that when Walt said "you got me," Walt wasn't joking.
Thanks for that, it all makes sense now.

In the end, Walt lost all but 9,700,000.00 of his dough, which will supposedly go to Flynn when he's 18, plus more importantly, his family, his son hates him, his wife hates him, Jesse hates him, every "associate" of his died, plus how many lives did he ruin with his meth? Like that couple who boosted the ATM machine that lived in that shithole of a house with the young son.

In the finale, when Walt is talking to Skyler and she says "If you say you did this for your family ONE more time!" and he says "No, I did it for me, I was good at it."

Holy smokes.

Like the opening line from "Baby Blue", "I guess I got what I deserved." that played out at the end of the series.

Yes; he did.
 

Ferm Sheller

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Mar 5, 2007
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I love how you just watched all however many hours of the series and in your opening post you refer to Walter White as "the main character". :)