'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' Pop-Ups

The 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups are phishing tactics that may help cybercrooks take over your PC remotely, collect your information or extort money. These pop-ups display inaccurate warnings about the presence of viruses and other, similarly threatening software on your computer without detecting any real threats or identifying their point of origin. Such attacks are most likely to occur while browsing the Web on unsafe websites, but you always can remove the 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups that reoccur with appropriate anti-malware utilities.

The Fictitious Viruses that Herald Authentic Computer Attacks

Yahoo's mail and news advertising networks are showing some signs of casual threat actors compromising them for reasons that are currently unknown, but include the desire to gain backdoor access to PCs at random. The attacks rely on encouraging the user to do the 'hard work' for them by faking a virus alert from within the Web browser to justify calling the con artist's phone number. Although the 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups have limited capability to harm your PC directly, the backdoor vulnerabilities that they instigate could help third parties install worse threats or collect data.

Malware researchers only can confirm that the scripts for the 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups are running in Chrome browsers, although other brands of browsers also are likely for being at risk. Their notification box appears when the browser loads the associated advertising content automatically and warns the user about an already-installed virus that's capable of collecting confidential information (such as passwords or credit card info), as well as damaging your local files. Users should be aware that actual computer viruses are highly rare in the modern threat industry, and are identifiable by their behavior of injecting their code into other, unrelated files open the opening of an infected file.

The 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups display this fake security information to advertise their equally-fraudulent, Windows 'tech support' number. Threat actors manning this hotline have histories of asking the user to grant them remote, backdoor control over the PC, which could let them accomplish any number of other attacks, including installing real, malicious software, disabling security programs, or stealing any locally-saved information.

The Cheapest Solutions for 'Toll-Free' Browser Problems

The 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups campaign, while prominent with compromised Yahoo advertising affiliates, is similar to other phishing attacks that may trigger through different sites, including both intentionally malicious ones and innocent ones with compromised security. Victims already believing themselves to be at risk from a scam artist's backdoor attacks should disable their internet connections immediately to limit any further security issues. However, at this date, the 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups include no advanced content, such as drive-by-downloads, that could initiate other attacks without your permission.

Blacklisting advertising networks with poor histories for security practices and disabling in-browser content that's highly vulnerable (such as JavaScript or pop-ups) can help your browser avoid loading phishing scams. Our malware experts always recommend assuming that a security alert that doesn't identify its source or recommends calling a hotline. Anti-malware products also can easily remove the 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups that are reappearing due to cookies or other, temporarily cached content for your browser.

The 'Internet Security Alert! Code: 055BCCAC9FEC' pop-ups are no more or less dangerous than you allow them to be. Hoping that a random message window is being honest with an unlikely and unusual claim is at least as self-destructive as taking the word of every public bystander for granted, if not more so.