Continually being hit with Popups

James1093 said:

My wifes computer is being hit with repeated popups, some one after the other non stop.
I installed the free trail Malware Bytes yesterday and it reported 26 detections, scanned again today and it said 0 but they're still happening. I manged to take a picture and it says
System Is At Risk

Delete Viruses
Google Chrome
Critical Virus Alert
Click here to scan
2ntrfi.waystriling.com

and a couple of buttons, Remove. Scan

Have tries the Remove option and Scan but don't know what that did, and the problem remains.

Might want to try ESET's "One Time Scan", found here...

Free Virus Scan | Online Virus Scan from ESET | ESET

...for a 2nd opinion.

You might have to do a clean install Clean Install Windows 10 in this case.

If you don't already make backups - Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect this is a good time to start after sorting out this issue.

James1093 said:

I have run both MalwareBytes and ESET. Both report nothing found. The last popup (which looks like a Windows system alert) had a "Delete Viruses" button and when pressed a browser opened saying

This Site can't provide a secure connection
scallactic.com sent an invalid response
Try running Windows Network Diagnostics
ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR
Reload

What could we do now? Anyone know what scallactic.com is ?
There's no other anti virus program afaik. Apart from Windows itself. Defender?

That site is bad and don't click on any pop-ups.
You'll need to run Adwcleaner as @FreeBooter previously mentioned. Whatever browsers you use you will then need to reset them all. You will have to search for info how to. eg:

Reset Chrome settings to default - Google Chrome Help.

How to Reset, Repair or Reinstall Edge browser in Windows 10

Then run Adwcleaner again.

If you get a site asking permission for notifications always deny unless it's a well known site such as this.
See how you get on.

James1093 said:

There's no other anti virus program afaik. Apart from Windows itself. Defender?

Good morning James.

Sorry to read you are having this annoying issue. Let's try and deal with it systematically.

Firstly, Prevention, to answer the above question, I use A/V software called AVG Internet Security which never lets me down. The cost is well worth it. A free version is also available: AVG Free I also have the AVG Online Security browser extension installed to Google Chrome. Accepting that there are other respectable alternatives, I highly recommend this software to protect yourself and family from the nasties. The configuration options available are sufficient to ensure a highly respected level of protection. I have mine pretty much set to max and this never causes me a problem with over-sensitivity, and I never visit dodgy sites anyway. Any that are dodgy get rapidly flagged up with a warning. It's best never to ignore these warnings. If you do go for AVG Internet Security (great choice!), take some time to configure it very carefully. This is important.

Here is a lot of useful information about Windows Defender I don't actually use it, preferring my AVG suite of software, though paid for, so I cannot really provide much comment about how good it is. I understand from various posts I have seen here from very experienced users that Defender is considered to be all that is needed and, nowadays, following improvements over the years, is quite decent. However, my early experience of it was less convincing. Taking the view that, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', I am extremely happy with my level of protection using AVG. It never lets me down. But that's my personal choice.

I actually use a fair few types of AVG software that, combined, offer much more than Defender does. The full list is AVG Internet Security, AVG AntiTrack, AVG BreachGuard, AVG Driver Updater, and AVG TuneUp. In my view, all of these are essential security provisions. The cost is well worth it. Defender is not free anyway, as is commonly thought. It is paid for as part of any genuine Windows installation. It is certainly fairly effective at what it does, though not a complete solution.

Still on Prevention, go to Chrome's Settings>>Privacy and Security and make sure you select the Enhanced Protection option. Below that, is another important option to use Secure DNS. I recommend that you use Open DNS, so select that, go to the Open DNS site and follow the instructions to set up your machine. This offers security improvements well worth having. It is not difficult if you steadily and carefully just follow the easy instructions, and does not take much time either; literally minutes. After adding the Open DNS IP addresses (they give you those in the instructions), I recommened you use the Command Prompt and execute the following command:

Code:

ipconfig /flushdns

Still in Chrome's Settings>>Privacy and Security, go to Site Settings and systematically go through every option with care being sure to switch off everything that is not absolutely necessary. (Pretty much all options). You can add individual sites you definitely want to allow, but set defaults to off. This is also important.

Further precautions (Added as afterthought) There are, of course, a couple of other things that you can do to help make infecting your machine much more difficult. Your chosen A/V (AVG recommended) enables you to set a password to open it or even view it, so I'd think about setting one to help prevent advanced infestations from being able to disable protection.

Next, protect your Bios by setting a password to open it, and you could also consider enabling Secure Boot.

The above precautions will certainly afford you a very high level of internet security and defend your machine well.

Fixing your existing popup issue AVG Internet Security and (I believe AVG Free) allows you to specifically add any domain to black list meaning that they will be permanently blocked and you will be well protected. Be sure to add scallactic.com to that list, and that might stop the this particular popup from operating at all, but will definitely shield you from their link. You can also specifically block sites in Chrome's Settings. I recommend that.

Running software such as MalwareBytes and ESET, already done, is a good move. They are both excellent.

But the issue has not yet been resolved. If you have completed the Prevention measures that I have recommended above, your situation is vastly improved though. I would consider carefully choosing a good A/V setup and sticking with it, becoming familar with all of its settings and putting yourself well and truly in control.

One more step I've edited this post and added this extra step after further thought and because what I say next has not yet been mentioned. It may be the case that you can identify a particular program on your system that is responsible for this popup nasty. It's worth checking all installed programs in Windows Apps settings anyway. I would be utterly ruthless and uninstall anything not absolutely necessary for functionality you need or essential dependencies such as C++, .NET Framework, etc. Take your time with this important step. I'd Google anything you don't understand systematically, especially checking what is said about any free software installed. That way, you are in control again.

Registry cleaning After giving your system a thorough going over as above, you will need to attend to your registry as it will have many broken entries and shortcuts that need to be resolved. For that you will need a good piece of software and there are several options available. This step alone will massively improve the speed of your machine. However, I highly recommend AVG Tune Up. I use it constantly, several times a day sometimes, and it is awesome. I like my machine lean and mean, as fast as possible at all times. If you like AVG Internet Security, they offer a combined deal that includes AVG Tune Up. Together they are a fantastic combination. Here's the link for that: AVG Ultimate

Further information 10 best practices for Windows security

Finally, if this maddening popup remains after you have completed the above measures and protected yourself from further infestations, as @steve108 said, you are best off doing a clean install of Windows. Just backup first as Steve suggested and be sure to use the Format option when offered during the install routine so that you clean the infected drive.

Best wishes with healing your wife's machine. I hope the above helps.

Christophe