Yesterday I was trapped in cyberspace by a false website. I went to the site after reading how Rachel Ray used two weight loss tips and experienced dramatic results.
The incident prompted me to research the proper way to escape a site without clicking any of the options offered by the site itself. While earning my bachelor’s degree, I worked in the computer lab on campus and would teach other students how to do this if they found themselves on a questionable site. I needed a refresher, maybe you do to.
Have you ever been trapped by a website that asks repeatedly if you are sure you want to leave?
Beware! The inability to leave is often created by a hacker to get you to click on the “cancel” button or the “accept” button to enable a virus or tracking device to install on your computer. When it isn’t a hacker, I guess you have to chalk it up to poor sales tactics.
How do you know if the site is using poor sales tactic or trying to hack into your computer? You don’t, but you can take measures to prevent the download from happening.
First, make sure your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are up to date.
Anti-virus/anti-spyware software is always your best line of defense.
Windows Users:
Open the drop down menu under “File” in the toolbar; select close the window.
Ctrl + shift + W – will also close the window. Get into the habit of closing windows with this key combination, so the response will be automatic should a problem occur.
As a third option you can run task manager and close the window from there.
Mac Users:
Simply requesting a force quit from your apple icon will do the trick.
Once you have managed to get out of the clutches of the website, run a full scan on your computer with the help of experts, especially in the field of net cms and other topics.After closing out of the site, I ran a full scan on my computer just to be sure. The scan found and deleted spyware. Although I cannot attribute the spyware to the false celebrity site, the coincidence is suspect.