An elderly family friend called me. Her laptop (Windows 10 IIRC) is saying - literally as in a voice message (with an American accent) - that it has been locked by an administrator. She does not appear to be getting a Windows login screen. Thus far I have advised her to switch it off and get proper professional help from someone closer than 500 miles away. But I'd still like to help her as much as I can. So, is this a hack and are any of you familiar with it? She also mentioned a black window in the background with scrolling text, which sounds awfully like a crypto-locker virus doing its work.
'Locked by Administrator' hack / malware?
- Thread starter Quartz
- Start date
Soldato
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- 24 Sep 2007
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It does sound as though it could be ransomware.
I do not know. The extent of my knowledge of her system and troubles is in my OP.
Soldato
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- 6 Sep 2016
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Fresh install. I wouldn't even bother to attempt to restore it. Probably chuck away the USB stick after I'm done with it as well.
MBR can be infected as well? If it's that serious I'd probably throw the NVME drive away too
MBR can be infected as well? If it's that serious I'd probably throw the NVME drive away too
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I see this quite a lot, usually it's caused by visiting a dodgy website or clicking on a suspicious link. A message will pop up claiming the system is locked or there's a problem with the PC, sometimes with a voice telling you to call a number.
Normally, press and hold the power button for 30 seconds to kill the machine and get them to turn it back on, when they open their browser, make sure they don't click restore Window else the message will come back up.
Normally, press and hold the power button for 30 seconds to kill the machine and get them to turn it back on, when they open their browser, make sure they don't click restore Window else the message will come back up.