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

[Robert11]

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

 

[Paul Black]

Hi Robert11,

I don't believe that message was from HP, I think it could have been phishing/spyware/malware/virus etc!
The first thing I would definately do is to make sure the antivirus is upto date and then run a full system scan.
The next thing I would do is to run MalwareBytes.

I hope this helps!

 

[Robert11]

Hi

Thanks.

Will tell son to run Malwarebytes.

Regards,
Bob

 

[Paul Black]

You're welcome Bob, you also need to tell him to run a full antivirus system scan!

 

[Robert11]

Hi Paul,

Any suggestions for which one ?

Any (good) free ones ?

Thanks again,
Bob

 

[Paul Black]

Hi Bob,

Check out this list of FREE antivirus software:

The best free antivirus in 2018

I personally use AVG Free.
This is the standalone installation download file if you decide to go down this route although you need to be connected to the Internet:

AVG AntiVirus FREE

Choose either the 32-bit or 64-bit.
When installing, choose Custom Install and then just untick the extra software that will be installed if you don't.
Once installed run a Full System Scan.
At some stage he can change/amend the settings to what suits him. I have the virus definitions updates and program updates set to manual among other things. Then I run these manually once a week, but as I said, that's my preference and what works for me!

I hope this helps!

 

[Alejandro85]

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.

 

[redoak]

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.

 

[MSClin]

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.

 

[Barman58]

In addition to a complete re-install, as the potential malware "diagnostic" has been run, I would advise that you change all passwords ever used on this system on or off line, with concentration on any financial passwords or related data - This is normally the target of these attacks.

It may be worthwhile informing your Bank or Banks of the situation so that they may monitor accounts for unusual activities

 

[Robert11]

Hello,

First, a most sincere thanks for all the comments and suggestions.
Really nice of everyone to take the time.

pc "seems" to be fine now. He did the MalWareBytes and AVG/AVS scans.
Best thing to just wait and see what, if anything happens with it in the immediate future
or go ahead with the complete re-install now ?

a. Do you think it is (probably) safe for him to change his present passwords to do on line banking, etc.
from this pc, or would it be better to do (only) in person at the individual banks ?

Are their virus' that might (still) send back password info. in the future ?
I haven't read about any like this, but...?

b. If he has to do a complete re-install, how does one go about doing it from the "Image", as was
suggested. Neither of us are very sharp with this, so specific step by steps would be most appreciated.

Or, is a re-install done in some other way; from the original W7 disk, or,...?

Or, just buy a new Windows disk fromMS ? (price is a ugh !). If so, guess it would have to
be a W10 disk, or are W7 still available ?

Much thanks, and best regards,
Bob

 

[Paul Black]

Hi Robert11,

First, a most sincere thanks for all the comments and suggestions.
Really nice of everyone to take the time.

You're welcome!

PC "seems" to be fine now. He did the MalWareBytes and AVG/AVS scans.

Did either of them report anything?

Best thing to just wait and see what, if anything happens with it in the immediate future or go ahead with the complete re-install now?

Read what I have written further down this post.

a. Do you think it is (probably) safe for him to change his present passwords to do on line banking, etc. from this pc, or would it be better to do (only) in person at the individual banks?

If he has access to another computer I would certainly change them on there rather than the current one. Then he could just login with the new username/password (if he changed either or both of them) on the current computer.

b. If he has to do a complete re-install, how does one go about doing it from the Image, as was suggested. Neither of us are very sharp with this, so specific step by steps would be most appreciated. Or, is a re-install done in some other way; from the original W7 disk, or,...?

If he has the original disk and he decides to go down this route then that would be best. If he doesn't have the original disk then follow these instructions for downloading the latest Windows 7 ISO.

You can download the ISO file from here:

TechBench

Then use the following information:

Windows (Final) > Windows 7 SP1 (build 7601) > Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 > English > Win_Ult_SP1_English_x64.iso

Obviously change the language and bit type (32-bit or 64-bit) to suit.

Once you have extracted the contents of the ISO and found the ei.cfg file in ISO > Sources > ei.cfg you can either delete or rename it. Doing this will make all Windows 7 versions available on the reinstall. You then just need to burn it to a DVD or USB and use that to reinstall.

On the installation you can select whatever version of Windows 7 you have the Product Key for.
You will only be able to activate the version of Windows that you have a valid Product Key for.

IMPORTANT: Make sure that he backups ALL of his data onto an external hard drive or USB because when you reinstall Windows everything on the hard drive will get wiped/deleted.

Here is an excellent tutorial published by Brink.

Clean Install Windows 7

I hope this helps!

 

[Barman58]

I would personally go the safer route where possible in cases like this, where resetting of banking passwords is a good idea .. get the bank(s) involved, ask for assistance, as if they help, and something does happen down the line, they are more likely to pay compensation

 

[Alejandro85]

pc "seems" to be fine now. He did the MalWareBytes and AVG/AVS scans.
Best thing to just wait and see what, if anything happens with it in the immediate future
or go ahead with the complete re-install now ?

"Seems" is the key word here, quotes included. That's exaclty the problem with security compromises, once a virus manages to run, you have no idea what it really did and how it could be hiding or whatever, it could do literally anything. Since the computer may be compromised, antiviruses can easily fail (even more) and miss. The computer as a whole can't be considered safe or reliable anymore, so there is no reason to delay, just reformat right now.

Do you think it is (probably) safe for him to change his present passwords to do on line banking, etc.
from this pc, or would it be better to do (only) in person at the individual banks ?

Don't use the compromised computer. Since it may still have something bad, any new password can also be compromised in the same way as the former, which defeats the purpose of the password change. Use another, known-safe system or in person or in an ATM or any other means, but not the affected computer.

Are their virus' that might (still) send back password info. in the future ?

It could easily happen. Since the computer has run a potentially dangerous program, it may have left something else that's doing bad things, not necesarily with you noticing. Or it might have been nothing and no bad things really happened. Problem is that we don't know what the reality is, so the only safe choice is to assume the worst and treat the computer as badly infected, for which the only solution is a clean install.

If he has to do a complete re-install, how does one go about doing it from the "Image", as was
suggested. Neither of us are very sharp with this, so specific step by steps would be most appreciated.

An image is not a clean install. An image is a form of "brute force" pseudo-backup, that copies literally everything from a hard disk. Basically, one takes an image and if something goes wrong, you restore it again, effectively "reverting" all the computer to that point in time. It's out of question if you haven't made it before the incident. More often than not, images aren't really useful to recover from security incidents, as you must make sure that the system was clean when the image was took.

A clean install, in opposition, consist in wiping the whole computer and start over from the default installation of the operating system. Since you start afresh, it leaves the system in its most pristine status, ensuring no infections were left (assuming the installation disk came from a reliable source), but at the price of having to reconfigure everything.