’888-972-9165′ Pop-Ups

If your browser starts showing security warnings that advise you to dial 888-972-9165 for assistance, you are undoubtedly infected with a browser hijacker. These alerts are not legit – they are designed only to take your money. This type of tactic is referred to as 'fake technical support.' The mechanism is relatively simple. First, the user sees a notification that lists all kinds of computer problems. For example, you may read that you are infected with advanced threats that may allow its operators to control the machine from afar. Very frequently, the bogus warnings threaten the users that some hackers may collect the credentials of their bank accounts, which may lead to substantial monetary losses. At the end of the message, you may see the recommendation to call 888-972-9165 to receive help from qualified technicians. As you probably know already, you will not get in touch with specialists but with con artists. They may continue the deception until you are really concerned about your computer's well being and your own privacy. At this point, the con artists may ask you to pay them a large sum of money to fix your PC. The fraud most often happens exactly at this moment because they will simply take your cash, offering nothing in exchange. The supposed IT specialists may ask for remote access to your system. Allegedly, they should scan it to find and delete threats that don't exist to begin with. However, what they may do is infect your machine with parasites. The reason you may see the bogus security warnings in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer is the presence of the mentioned browser hijacker. This extension may be exceptionally resistant to the conventional uninstall procedures, so you should use a dedicated anti-malware product.