Malicious pop up message when accessing certain suspicious sites

Overview

Some malicious website will hijack the web browser when accessing them and a suspicious pop-up message may appear.

See the "Symptoms" section of this article for examples of these messages.

The intention of these malicious pop-up messages is to get you to click on them. Please do not click on anything in the pop-up message as they may lead to malicious software.

Solution (If appropriate)

For Chrome Browser:

1. Navigate to top right corner of the browser window and click on the icon that looks like 3 dots
2. Click on "Settings"
3. In Settings page, click on "Privacy and Security" on left side of the page
4. Click on "Site settings"
5. Click on "Notifications" under "Permissions" section
6. Click the "Add" button at the right side of "Not allowed to send notifications"
7. Type in or copy and paste the suspicious site address to the text box and click "Add" button

For Firefox Browser:

1. Navigate to top right corner of the browser window and click on the icon that looks like 3 lines
2. Click on "Settings"
3. In Settings page, click on "Privacy & Security" on left side of the page
4. Scroll down and find "Permissions" section
5. Check the check box of "Block pop-up windows"
6. If you do prefer to have pop-up windows for certain sites that you trust, you can manage them using the "Exceptions" button on the right side of the check box. 

If you are allowing certain sites for pop-up message, please use it at your risk.

Symptoms

Suspicious messages kept showing up on a pop-up window while accessing certain websites.

Examples of pop-up messages would be:

• "Activate McAfee Antivirus, Click here to delete the virus"
• "Your Card info Has Been Leaked, Click to Fix"
• "Your Norton subscription has expired, Click to renew"
• "Your computer is at risk, Click for a full virus scan"

Work-Around

Cause (If Known)

Browser hijacking sessions.