I recently came upon this anti-virus scam while checking out a news article on a legitimate website.I was trying to get the latest on my favorite TV show when this window popped up. It does a pretty good job of imitating what a scan might look like if a legitimate security program were running it. It warned me that it had detected high-risk files on my device.
Then it alerted me that my my free McAfee subscription was out of date. Which was a bit weird as I don’t have any McAfee Security subscription. However, if I tap that button to renew the subscription, all of my problems are solved. It gives the web address as a “threatdetectorhub” – which my actual security software alerts me is a tech support scam.
Now, how did this end up on a legitimate site? Do I have some sort of virus on my device? What’s happened is that these scammers use self-service ad purchasing platforms and now and again slip in their scammy ads which are notoriously difficult to close. Fortunately, I was able to just back out of it by hitting back button. Closing the browser would have worked as well.
As always, you have to be vigilant, lest you tap that renew button before you think. You’ll either end up paying scammers or downloading a bunch of junk onto your device.
Interestingly, I have McAfee and received a similar message. And, coincidentally, my subscription runs out soon.
I’m curious which antivirus program you have. I recall that you ran a few articles on this topic previously. Could you rerun those?