Cybercriminals Employ Scam in Chrome

Now here comes the latest where cybercriminals are abusing web browser code to create windows that prevent users from closing it, this is the latest finding from security company Malwarebytes.

This is an attempt by the scammer to freeze Google Chrome, and as they exploit this feature at the same time sends out a bogus warning, which reads “Your PC has alerted us that it has been infected with a virus and spyware,” the fraudulent warning tells users. The dialogue box will also have a support line number of Microsoft, is fake. But, since the user is not able to close the windows they are likely to call the hotline number for assistance.

According to Malwarebytes, the scam is being targeted at Windows users running the latest version of Google Chrome, build 64.0.3282.140. Nevertheless, the Windows Task Manager will allow you to forcefully close the offending browser processes.

Jérôme Segura, of Malwarebytes, said: “Considering that Chrome has the most market share in the browser category, this is yet another example of the desire for threat actors to deploy new social engineering schemes. Since most of these browser lockers are distributed via malvertising, an effective mitigation method is to use an ad-blocker.

“As a last resort, the Windows Task Manager will allow you to forcefully quit the offending browser processes.

“Malwarebytes users were already protected against the redirection mechanism used in this attack.”

Attackers are able to freeze-up Chrome by instructing the popular web browser to download thousands of files.

This results in the Google-branded web browser, quickly becoming unresponsive – making it impossible for users to close tabs or the window by clicking the X button.

Should you encounter this scam in the wild: do not call the fake Microsoft support number.

Instead, launch Windows Task Manager by pressing CTRL, ALT, and DEL simultaneously – then force-close the tab responsible for crashing the browser.