How do I know I clicked on malware?
From Google search, click a link to a spam website, click back--2nd website with firefox popup "today's lucky visitor" and offers a $1000 Amazon gift card. I was searching through google and did click on sites before with many ads, but never within these sites did I click anything else. Now, after this coming from what looked like a legit website, it brings me these webpages.
Not sure if I click more in the back button browser for Firefox why it doesn't bring me back to the Google search page. I'm now scared to do anything else to give it any more access. What can I do now to make sure I clean the browser? I though Firefox would protect me from this sort of thing more. I also thought I was a pretty careful searcher. Where did I go wrong?
All Replies (2)
Hi katherine.c, Mozilla Firefox never offers any type of sweepstakes. If you ever encounter any, pass it up.
Here are a few articles which can help you increase your security against pop-ups and malware: Firefox options, preferences and settings
Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware
And a site to test the strength of your pop-up blocker: Test your popup blocker software
There are also many add-ons which you can install like: Malwarebytes Browser Extension from Firefox Add-ons.
Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.
Make sure you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/ - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
https://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender:
https://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
https://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350