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Bkxmnr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 9, 2009
147
70
Wichita, KS
Hello everyone. Need a little help from the community with this one. I don't really belong to any Windows forums so I'm hoping you guys can help. My mother-in-law fell victim to the Microsoft computer repair scam - to the tune of $194. I finally convinced her it was scam and to power off the computer and disconnect from the router, but it had been running under their control for several hours. The good news is she only uses the computer for email, facebook, and storing pictures. We were able to change her email and FB passwords and it appears no emails have been sent. We have cancelled her credit card.

My main question is, what do I need to do or look for at this point? I assume looking for any processes that are using an inordinate amount of CPU time and reload anti-virus software. There's no telling how much malware has been loaded on the thing. I'm afraid it's been turned into a giant bot-server for someone in India. Any help on how to proceed is muy appreciated.
 

MJL

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2011
845
1
Hello everyone. Need a little help from the community with this one. I don't really belong to any Windows forums so I'm hoping you guys can help. My mother-in-law fell victim to the Microsoft computer repair scam - to the tune of $194. I finally convinced her it was scam and to power off the computer and disconnect from the router, but it had been running under their control for several hours. The good news is she only uses the computer for email, facebook, and storing pictures. We were able to change her email and FB passwords and it appears no emails have been sent. We have cancelled her credit card.

My main question is, what do I need to do or look for at this point? I assume looking for any processes that are using an inordinate amount of CPU time and reload anti-virus software. There's no telling how much malware has been loaded on the thing. I'm afraid it's been turned into a giant bot-server for someone in India. Any help on how to proceed is muy appreciated.

If the computer was configured properly and you have done your job in the past I would just do a restore of the last backup.

If not then I would run a MSN Security Essentials scan, run CCleaner and then MSN Security Essentials again. Hopefully (but no guarantees) that should get rid of any malware.

You can watch if it is a botserver by checking activity in the task manager and check CPU and network activities/usage.
 

Bkxmnr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 9, 2009
147
70
Wichita, KS
Thanks for the reply MJL. I will probably end up copying the pictures to an external drive and reloading the OS. Really dont have the time right now. Such is life.
 
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