Recently I have had a few computer repair clients who have been baited by false virus scams. The strange thing is at least one method the hackers use is what appears to be legitimate Facebook posts. You may or may not be able to avoid clicking on one of these posts/images, but what you do next is the most important thing. The first red flag is a scary looking image that pops up on your screen stating your computer has been infected with a virus. To call a number listed. DO NOT DO EITHER! Restart your computer and save any work you may have had open but don’t click on that false warning. If you have any issues with these steps, call us 24/7 at (423) 381-0925. After you restart your computer, run your anti-virus scan.
We recommend Avast anti-virus because it is free and light weight and very effective at protecting your computer. Even as much as installing Avast and removing McAfee or Norton because they aren’t as effective and slow your computers down more. To make it more user-friendly, after you install Avast, follow these steps to make it the least intrusive:
- Open Avast
- Go to Menu top right
- Click on Settings
- Click on Notifications
- Set Avast to run on Silent Mode – this will avoid annoying popups.