Freeze, and Msg.: "This computer May Self Destruct" ? (HP Desktop)

Hello,

Not too much actual info. on this, but you folks have been so
absolutely helpful in the past, thought I'd at least Post, and see if anyone might
have any thoughts on it.

Son (not in area) has a several year old HP Desktop.
Neither him, or I, are too computer knowledgeable.

Last night, he sent me this:

Computer froze when I was typing

I rebooted but it happened again

I had the “Blue Screen of Death.”

Then a message appeared “This computer may self-destruct.”

Then I received a message about a diagnostic that would take over an hour.

The one hr Diagnostic msg appeared to be legitimate and from HP. He did run it.
Not sure if it is only a diagnostic, or actually attempts to fix any problem(s) ?
*Might you know ?

The "This computer may self-destruct" msg. I have a hard time believing it is from HP.
*Sure does sound like a virus, doesn't it ? Or ?

Anyway, all seems fine this am.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Bob

Hi

Thanks.

Will tell son to run Malwarebytes.

Regards,
Bob

Hi Paul,

Any suggestions for which one ?

Any (good) free ones ?

Thanks again,
Bob

The message "self-destruct" seems very unlikely to come from a legitimate source, and the further "diagnostic" is very similar to the one that malware uses to trick the user to run it ("click here to fix all your problems"). By running this process, I'm almost sure that he got infected with something.

At this point, the computer isn't reliable anymore. Unless I'm missing something, or the message happens to be legitimate (unlikely), I would consider an immediate reformat and clean install.

Alejandro85 said:

The message "self-destruct" seems very unlikely to come from a legitimate source, and the further "diagnostic" is very similar to the one that malware uses to trick the user to run it ("click here to fix all your problems"). By running this process, I'm almost sure that he got infected with something.

At this point, the computer isn't reliable anymore. Unless I'm missing something, or the message happens to be legitimate (unlikely), I would consider an immediate reformat and clean install.

I agree. The computer is almost surely compromised. I would definitely reformat and clean install (or restore a backed up image from before the incident) if this were my computer.

Alejandro85 said:

The message "self-destruct" seems very unlikely to come from a legitimate source, and the further "diagnostic" is very similar to the one that malware uses to trick the user to run it ("click here to fix all your problems"). By running this process, I'm almost sure that he got infected with something.

At this point, the computer isn't reliable anymore. Unless I'm missing something, or the message happens to be legitimate (unlikely), I would consider an immediate reformat and clean install.

Exactly.

Antivirus will hardly help here.