Zeus pop-up in Edge

[Kathy Pearlman]

I get a pop-up that says a Zeus malware has been found and to call a certain number for support. Edge won't close by clicking in the corner, but will with Task Manager - this ONLY happens with Edge, not any of the other browsers, including IE. It doesn't come up again, once it's been closed the first time. Anti- virus hasn't found it either. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a software question. If not, can someone tell me where to post it?

 

[Regedit32]

Hi Kathy,

If its a popup alerting to you an alleged virus/malware infection, and is freezing the browser, then its likely to be just another variant of the Critical Alert Microsoft scam, which is essentially just a browser redirect.

To get rid of the current one, clear Edge's:

• Browsing History
• Cookies and saved website data
• Cached data and files
• Tabs I've set aside or recently closed

To do that open Edge, then in top right corner click the Ellipsis . . . then click on Settings and then click the Choose what to clear button. Check the first four choices then click the Clear button

Sample image

Unfortunately, there is not a lot you can do about these fake alerts, as the scripts running them are all over the internet. Windows Defender will occasionally spot an infected .htm or .html file in your browser cache, as the webpage contains the redirect script, but only if you have not all ready clear cookies and browsing data.

If you happened to note down the URL for the page posting the alert, you could add it to our Windows Hosts file to block it from opening again, but as there are literally, tens of thousands of variants (probably more), its barely worth the effort, other than the fact all browsers use the same Hosts file, so editing one location is perhaps easier than editing multiple browsers.

To edit the Hosts file to block a site, you'd do the following:

• Press your Windows key + S key together to give focus to the Search/Cortana field
• In the Search/Cortana field type comm
• In the Search Results, right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator
• When prompted by the User Account Control prompt, click Yes
• In the Administrator: Command Prompt console type or copy & paste the following:

notepad.exe C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc\Hosts

Press Enter key

A notepad will now open with the Hosts content like so:

Scroll to bottom then add a new entry to block a particular website by typing the following:

For this demonstration, we will pretend you wish to block a website called pokerstars.com

So to block that you would enter this:

127.0.0.1 pokerstars.com

Then click file > save

Sample image

Now just close the window, and also your Administrator: Command Prompt console.​

Regards,

Regedit32