FLORIDA —
QUESTION: Recently, I have been getting annoying McAfee pop-ups. How can I stop them? They pop up on Chrome and Edge and state, “VIRUS FOUND,” “Critical Error found the virus,” or “System Error,” etc.
– John P.
Crestview, Florida
ANSWER: Well, John, have you considered that maybe McAfee is just doing its job? Perhaps it found a virus and is trying desperately to tell you about it. This is one of those times when it would have helped me to have the exact text being displayed to you.
That would have helped me determine with certainty whether we’re dealing with an actual virus detection, or a piece of malware that’s masquerading as McAfee and claiming it found a virus.
In my humble Geek opinion, it seems that a virus announcing that a virus was found is a pretty stupid way for a virus to manifest itself, but I’m not here to grade the intelligence of malware purveyors – just to try to assist when one succeeds in infecting someone.
Actually, the fact is that there is a fairly common phishing malware going around that does pretty much exactly what you describe. It’s called the McAfee Critical Virus Alert, or something like that.
But let’s be clear: whatever is generating these messages has not “found” a virus, but rather is malware in and of itself.
Specifically, it falls into a category called scareware which attempts to instill fear and panic to make you act rashly, such as downloading more malicious software or hastily entering personal information into sites that try to sell you antivirus subscriptions, which are probably nothing but more malware.
You didn’t mention it in your description, but I’d bet that the bogus dialog boxes include buttons that say stuff like “Accept risk” and “Get protection.” It’s that second one that will lead to even worse problems if you don’t realize what’s going on. For heaven’s sake, do not click it! Things will just get worse if you do.
So, now that you’re infected, what should you do?
There are several steps you’ll need to take, and each one requires explanation, so rather than try to cram it all in my rather modest column, I’m going to do what I usually do, which is refer you to a resource on the Internet that has the answers you’re seeking.
So, pop on over to TinyURL.com/IGTM-0896, which will redirect you to an article on the website CyberNews. Follow all the instructions, and it will fix you right up.
Now, having provided the source for a fix, I did want to talk a little about how one could have identified this early-on. And I say that because your original submission, John, strongly implies that you believe McAfee is generating these pop-ups. One strong hint that these notifications are bogus would be to ask yourself whether you even have McAfee installed on your machine?
If the answer is “no” then it’s obvious that despite the appearance of the well-known McAfee logo.
Other ways to tell that this, or something like this is a scam is the poor grammar that’s often in messages. A great majority of this junk is created overseas, where English is not the first language of the creator.
Grammar errors, both subtle and gross, are a direct giveaway, assuming the person reading the text knows proper grammar. Unfortunately, from what I read on social media, at least one of the old-fashioned “3 Rs” is rapidly fading from importance.
Jeff Werner, a software engineer based in Niceville, Florida, has been writing his popular “It’s Geek to Me” tech column since 2007. He shares his expertise to help readers solve everyday tech challenges. To view additional content, comment on articles, or submit a question, visit ItsGeekToMe.co (not .com!)
