HP laptop blocked by virus (hack is a remote possibility).

[Solid Snake]

Hey guys, I´m giving a shout of help over here, my girlfriend has this HP laptop for about 2 months, it had Avast antivirus, and since it was practically a only home-use laptop I did not expect many problems relating to virus, trojans etc...The point is, she gave me a call and said that her laptop after start up shows a black page with white letters that says she is guilty of watching illegal porn etc...and that she has 48 hrs to pay at a local store franchise (lol) X amount of money; the message displays a picture of her taken from the laptop´s webcam. The page appears frozen on this state, question, how can I get around this problem? I´ll go over on the morning to try and solve it; any help guys? It will mean a lot.

[Colossus]

I would cover up the webcam, that is quite alarming! However, this malware itself with the screen saying you have done something illegal and demanding money seems to be quite common at the moment.

It's potentially quite difficult to sort out if you cannot boot into windows in the first place to run anything. Just to try the obvious first, if you stop the computer from connecting to the internet (either remove cable or turn off wifi), does the screen still appear, and can you do anything else? Also, does booting into safe mode work? It probably won't, but worth trying anyway.

Failing that, you will need a usb stick which you don't have anything on in order to use a program to scan the computer from the boot menu. You could try this guide:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/viru...ity-ransomware

[Solid Snake]

Thanks mate, I was on duty this Saturday, so Ipll give it a go today on the afternoon.

[GrnEyedDvl]

This is almost certainly tied to her user profile, IE if you login as another user the issue is not there. Its a pretty common hijack.

Boot the machine, press F8 while booting.
Select Safe Mode
Delete all temp internet files and other temp files on the system.


Windows 7 + XP
Start > Run - You may have to enable the Run Command

Type msconfig in the box.
Go to the Tools Tab, select System Restore and Launch it.

Pick a restore date from before this problem showed up, and restore the system. Once it starts the restore, just let it go. Don't interrupt it.

Basically this resets the registry and a few other things to another point in time. You may have to reinstall (or let them install automatically) some Windows updates and drivers but you shouldn't lose any data.

Tell the "gf" to find a different way to watch porn!

[Solid Snake]

Safe mode doesnt work...all I get is blank scree.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Safe mode doesnt work...all I get is blank scree.

Blue or black??

You should get a black screen that says Safe Mode in the corners, and after a couple of minutes your task bar should load up.

[Solid Snake]

I try to boot from the USB as suggested above, but I get "error loading the operating system"

[Solid Snake]

A full grey-image appeared, it had no safe mode at the corners, no task bar, no start button etc... I tried with a different USB to boot Hitman, and it worked! Problem solved, thanks guys.