Help, recently on-line searching for vacation tours in South Carolina. Clicked on a link and received the following message:
Verbal message stated to call this number immediately because I have access a spyware (1-855-469-3948). Could this be true?
MacBook Pro
It is a scam. Do not call the number.
Force quit Safari, then restart Safari while holding the Shift key.
What if I called the number… 😟 Should I be worried?
catherinefrompoway wrote:
What if I called the number… 😟 Should I be worried?
What else did you do?
Did you allow them to inspect your Mac?
😟 briefly… then I got suspicious and disconnected my wifi
So the answer is yes?
yes… I am worried
There is no way to know what was done while the criminal was connected so:
Erase your Mac, restore from a backup that pre-dates the intrusion. Change all user ID's and passwords, change all credit card # etc.
Interesting, I just got routed to a web page displaying an apple logo stating "Secure Connection Failed - svn.boost.org Uses and Invalid Security Certificate. The Certificate is not trusted..... [yada yada].... CALL TOLL FREE 1-855-169-3948"
There was also a pop-up window that descended below the bottom of my monitor, rendering no access to any buttons that may have been available. The popup window stated "http://mac-protecton.com Critical Security Warning! your System is infected with a malicious adward attack. Please call tech support at 1-855-469-3948and provide error code WBACK7917... [yada yada]... Please call customer service at 1-855-469-3948to [not a typo] resolve issues."
Clearly spam, but how did this page load? I wasn't going to 'svn.boost.org' but instead to ussoccer.com - also, I've recently visited sites pertaining to travel, similar to OP.
To resolve, I quit Safari, and on restart the same page/popup loaded. I quit Safari again but was fast enough to close the window before it loaded. I also had to close multiple 'unknown' tabs before an expected page loaded.
Clearly a scam and didn't call the number. Hopefully this is an isolated incident. Screen grabs of offending pages attached.
I should edit:
I was able to get rid of the pop-ups after relaunching Safari and quickly pressing "CMD-W" to close the offending tabs before they loaded (didn't close tabs when quitting program).
This issue appears to be similar to these posts:
These communications were all helpful. I had the same messages described above regarding secure connection failure with the instructions to dial (855) 469-3948. I used the force quit of Safari and then restart while holding the shift key to solve the problem. Out of curiosity, I dialed the phone number and hung up when someone answered. I was then called back from (463) 977-9249 but did not answer. Beware of this number as well.
Do not even call the numbers as they now know your details are active.
Pete
This just happened to me - figured it was scam or something due to misspelled words; immediately shut down; started up - pages came back up so I shut down again and used my phone to find this information so I reopened safari by holding shift key - I did not call any #'s, etc., so am I ok? Do they have access to computer via those pop up windows?
eamason25 wrote:
This just happened to me - figured it was scam or something due to misspelled words; immediately shut down; started up - pages came back up so I shut down again and used my phone to find this information so I reopened safari by holding shift key - I did not call any #'s, etc., so am I ok? Do they have access to computer via those pop up windows?
No, they don't have access unless you contact them.
Pete
Thank you.
Spyware
