It’s that time of year again, where malicious hackers are trying their best to gain access to your machine for all sorts of reasons. The two most successful ways they’re gaining entry is by popups or calling you directly.

Popups are little windows that literally ‘pop up’ on your screen. They will tell you various things, like, “your Windows license is expiring”, or “Flash (or some other component) needs to be updated”, followed by a toll free number to call, or a link to click. NEVER call this number and NEVER click on any link. It will only give them what they want; access to your machine and it’s secrets, like your social security number, credit card numbers, or any other kind of information they can use to steal.

If you do get one of these popups, simply turn off your machine immediately, reboot, and run a virus scanner like Malwarebytes or Hitman Pro or Kaspersky. There are others out there, but these three encompass the most popular programs for this type of invasion. Feel free to give us a call 847-502-1531 to help walk you through it.

If you get a call from these morons, most likely they will have an accent and ask you to download a program that effectively gives them the “Keys to the Kingdom”. NEVER do this! Just tell them you are reporting them to the Authorities and hang up and immediately block that number! Microsoft or ANY of the big companies will NEVER call you, EVER. These criminals are just doing what’s known as “phishing”. They really don’t know who you are, no matter what they tell you. They are just having a machine dial a set of numbers and talking with whoever answers. If you listen closely, you’ll probably hear aLOT of other voices in the background, as these idiots are sitting in a cubicle in a room full of criminals like themselves, trying to steal.

The best thing you can do is call your telephone provider and give them the phone number these folk are calling from. Let them handle it from there.