'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' Support Scam

The 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam is a tactic browser-based attack that fakes Windows errors, and associated update prompts. Safe browser settings and habits can remove most of the risk from encountering this tactic and any potential drive-by-download exploits. Users also can keep anti-malware products close at hand for blocking a 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam and its payloads.

A Pop-Up Warning Whose Only Relevance is Danger by Deceit

Like the "McAfee Has Blocked Your Windows" Support Scam or the Fake WindowsUpdater Ransomware that came before it, the 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam is part of a long-running string of hoaxes leveraging Windows' ubiquity for an attack. For the 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam, it involves displaying pop-up messages that (poorly) imitate Windows alerts for tricking users into downloading unwanted software. The software in question can be obnoxious or even threatening, ranging the gamut from homepage hijackers to rootkits.

The 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam includes a tactic page title imitating an error code of 'Erx03' and claims that Windows damage is causing the deletion of system files. It follows this extremely unusual warning with a more-standard recommendation for installing 'the latest software.' While the text is entirely in English, the odd word usage suggests that it's not content produced by a native speaker.

In other areas, the 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam is no different from similar tactics. It uses the fake update prompt for installing third-party software, which may include Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) such as toolbars or browser hijackers, or more unsafe ones, such as file-locking Trojans. Such attacks also are highly likely for some Ransomware-as-a-Service families like the STOP Ransomware, which, often, gains victims at random as opportunity dictates.

Making a Scheme Irrelevant to Your Browsing Safety

Besides its warning message not sounding particularly like an authentic Windows alert, the 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam is a conventional example of a pop-up-delivered Web tactic. The same old defenses can protect one's browser from it, including turning off Java, Flash, and JavaScript, blocking corrupted domains and refusing Windows updates that don't arrive through the operating system's native updating feature. Users with even faint familiarity with Windows should have little chance of being tricked by this attack.

However, it's impossible to predict any payloads from a 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam completely. Threat actors can configure different payloads according to geolocating victims through their IP addresses, as well as other, mostly pay-per-install methods. WEB tactic surfers should avoid interaction with the 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam or its site and close the tab through keyboard shortcuts, or even the Task Manager.

Anti-malware products with browser protection also may block a 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam, and, more importantly, any software payloads that it's installing.

The 'Your Windows 10 is Damaged and Irrelevant' support scam tries to look like a part of your OS that's warning you of danger, but the disguise is paper-thin. Believing every poorly-worded alert that comes one's way on the tactic is a shortcut towar