This morning I was surfing the internet for generators. I saw what they had at Home Depot, so as I was entering Lowe's in my Vivaldi browser search bar, a "Microsoft alarm" went off on my computer. Very loud with flashing words, so much so that it distracted me from what all I was seeing on my screen. So I don't remember it all.
But the jest of it was that my computer was being locked down by Microsoft because I had used a website where private data (mine & others) had been compromised. I was told not to turn off my computer or data might be lost. I was instructed to immediately call 1-844-388-4573 to resolve the issue.
Sure enough, I could not get to my desktop or my taskbar. If I closed out the flashing warning window, it came back immediately. So I invoked the Task Manager via Ctrl+Alt+Del and then restarted my computer. I then had MBAM Paid and Defender do scans, and they found nothing (nor had either reported what had just happened on my computer). As far as I can tell, no data is missing from my computer and everything appears to be working fine.
I don't think it was Ransomware because I was able to regain control of my computer. But the loud noise and flashing screen scared the bejesus out of me. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that a buddy was playing tricks on me. Jay, are you messing with me???
I later searched the internet to find out about the phone number, but that wasn't successful. Needless to say, I did not dial the number.
Does anyone have any idea what that was all about? Got me a little nervous because of all the safeguards I use. Thanks in advance.......