[sf-lug] "RANSOM VIRUS" ATACHED TO WEB SITE?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Mikki (mikkimc at earthlink.net):

> HI, ALL;
> 
> Today early I started the computer, moved immediately to Firefox,
> started Startpage, and typed in :  "pork loin roast."  I selected the
> item at the top of the list, and immediately got a frozen screen and
> computer, with vocal over-ride saying that this was a program that
> froze my computer, 'because someone had illegally used my isp and such
> to access a site of viruses."  The screen box said that I could get
> the computer unfrozen by calling a certain number (1-866-217-8944.)  

As Daniel said, this seems like just an annoying piece of Javascript,
a common dumb trick designed to stampede you into doing dumb things 
(like getting fooled into paying them money), probably not a 'virus'.
(You don't really give enough detail to know for sure.)

If my guess is right, you could have just closed the tab, or, if that
didn't work, kill and restart your Web browser and restart it without
loading that tab.

In general, it's wise to learn to use tools that control Javascript and 
disable some of its more-abused functions.  The classic tool for doing
that is the NoScript extension, but newcomers tend to bounce off its
significant learning curve.  (For all its many faults, at least
client-side Javascript is sandboxed so it cannot delete/change local
files.)

> When I re-actvated the machine, most of what I had on the desktop and
> in the document file, (on the Desktop) were gone.

Well, if you say so.  I'm unclear on what the 'Desktop/documents file' 
refers to.

Good job on having contemporaneous and detached backups.