Congratulations! You won!

'Congratulations! You won!' is a misleading message that's used by various unscrupulous advertisements. Some infections may also create 'Congratulations! You won!' messages even if you don't have a web browser open. These infections typically attack your PC by using browser security exploits and may avoid easy detection by otherwise competent anti-malware programs. To protect yourself from 'Congratulations! You won!' attacks, you should have strict browser security settings. Removing 'Congratulations! You won!' infections can be accomplished with the judicious application of Safe Mode alongside fully-updated security scanners.

'Congratulations! You won!' – A Not So Honest Advertisement

'Congratulations! You won!' is most often experienced as a part of advertisements distributed on legitimate advertisement networks that don't exercise sufficient control over advertisement quality. In all cases, it's strongly recommended that you avoid clicking on a 'Congratulations! You won!' advertisement, since you haven't 'won' anything – this message is displayed to all viewers of the 'Congratulations! You won!' advertisement.

Since the 'Congratulations! You won!' advertisement uses deceptive advertising, it's highly likely to be a source of serious attacks on your PC if you make the mistake of clicking the advertisement. Such attacks can result in malicious security programs being downloaded to your PC even if you don't download anything intentionally and don't see any download activity occurring.

Navigating to a different page will usually cause the 'Congratulations! You won!' advertisement to be switched out for a different advertisement, but more 'Congratulations! You won!' advertisements may appear in the future. To stop 'Congratulations! You won!' advertisements from appearing at all you may want to disable JavaScript and Flash for untrustworthy websites. If you require these features to access website content, most browsers have plugins that allow you to selectively disable Flash and Java only for advertisements like 'Congratulations! You won!' while leaving them enabled for legitimate content.

Conveniently, taking these defensive steps will also protect you from 'Congratulations! You won!' infections, as noted below.

How to React to a 'Congratulations! You won!' PC Invasion

'Congratulations! You won!' can also directly infest your PC as a malicious security program infection. If this is the case, 'Congratulations! You won!' messages can sound off repeatedly even if you don't have any visible browser windows open.

Updating your web browser to the latest version on a regular basis will minimize the possibility of being attacked by 'Congratulations! You won!' infections, since many forms of 'Congratulations! You won!' attacks are limited to exploits that are specific to older browser versions.

To remove 'Congratulations! You won!' infections, reboot into Safe Mode and use an appropriate anti-malware program. Rebooting into a different OS will also provide a safe environment for scanning your system. You should never tolerate 'Congratulations! You won!' being on your PC, since 'Congratulations! You won!' infections can create vulnerabilities that put your computer at risk of being attacked by other types of malicious security programs.