How can I prevent this from happening again? The hackers were from China, Russia and Czech and were attempting purchases of child ****** and several other sites.
Hello,
Straight from the title, that definitely sounds like a fake pop-up. Fake pop-ups claiming your Windows computer is locked due to unusual activity are a common tech support scam. These pop-ups, often mimicking legitimate alerts, aim to scare users into contacting a fraudulent support center and potentially installing malware or surrendering personal information.
Here's what you should do next:
After closing the browser, clear its cache and history, as these pop-ups often reside in your browser's data. Run a full scan with your antivirus software to ensure your system is clean. If the problem persists, consider resetting your browser to its default settings, which will remove any suspicious extensions or add-ons. You can also configure your browser to block pop-ups and redirects. If all else fails, a factory reset can remove any lingering malware or malicious extensions.
These scams are quite popular and the best way to avoid falling for them is to already have a trusted antivirus installed on your devices. However, I should mention that the antivirus cannot take any direct measures related to this type of notifications, such as adware that you agreed on or something you enabled, like site setting, site notification, redirects in your browser or installed toolbars, extensions or applications. However, its defenses will kick in once you click on a malicious URL, or if you are being redirected to harmful websites, it will block the threat. There are still ways to prevent such pop-ups from being displayed, and on the same topic I invite you to consult the below articles. I think the best prevention measure you can take is to be vigilant, double check when installing browser extensions and what additional things they may attempt to install, and NEVER click on these pop-ups.
https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/2574/
https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/fake-antivirus-pop-ups
I hope the information is useful.
Regards,
Alex
