One of our guys in the office fell for the “your computer is infected click here to update your virus scan and delete this virus” scam. I always wondered what these viruses did and after he clicked it it just took over his machine. It shut down his own virus scan, you could not do a restore to a day or two earlier, you couldn’t get into task manager to close it, and it kept asking him for a credit card to pay for the update to the virus scan so the virus could be removed. I am no dummy around PC’s and it was just amazing how it took over his PC. We did a complete restore on it - wiped it clean.
That JUST happened to me. A new icon appeared in my bottom toolbar, and when I clicked on it, it said “thank you for downloading X”. Tried to stop it by turning off the computer, but it kept loading. Then my computer was literally dead. Had to get the complete restore. I NEVER open unsolicited popups that “inform me” they are running a scan for viruses, and I ignore emails that are unsolicited. I thought I was being smart, but these viruses are lethal.
Tell him to get Carbonite!