A client called and said that he has the FBI virus on his computer. He was just on the internet when his computer is locked with a blue screen supposedly from the FBI. The screen spoke of a legal violation and demand for immediate payment by a MoneyPak purchased from Walmart or CVS. This is obviously a "ransomware" scam. The sender of this scam hopes that by scaring the computer user and locking the computer, they will be the recipient of a ransom payment.
I booted the computer up with Hiren's Boot CD http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd. This allowed the computer to bypass the hard drive and boot solely from the CD. Once booted in a graphical GUI environment. I was able to reach the internet, download the latest version of Malwarebytes (one of the better malware and spyware removal tools) and remove the virus.
The computer was back to normal after a 2-3 hour scan and the client was a happy camper.
The computer was back to normal after a 2-3 hour scan and the client was a happy camper.
