Don't click any adverts on web pages either; due to the convoluted, horrendous mess that is the web advertising industry it is very open to fraud and the injection of malware code behind apparently innocent ads.
 
This is what I mean by horrendous, convoluted mess:
 
https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/02/05/programmatic_advertising_market.jpg
 
> "Wow.....what a real pain to go through all that......I'm surprised a software didn't catch it and quarantine it,"
 
Much harder than you might think if we're talking about clicking a web page link.  On a Windows machine, you have then effectively given whatever script is hiding behind the link root-level permission to run on your machine.  Due to tricks like the JSF*** one I posted about a few days ago, most (if not all) script sanitisers can't identify the mass of characters being passed to the JRE as even being script that can run.

Heh, I just read that Forbes won't show any of their content until you turn your ad blocker off and then they have been dumping malware onto people's computers!  Figures.

Yup!
 
[Forbes:] "We noticed you still have ad blocker enabled. By turning it off or whitelisting Forbes.com, you can continue to our site and receive the Forbes ad-light experience."
 
That's pretty recent; I looked at a Forbes page concerning the owner of a company we're currently doing some work for not two weeks ago.  Forbes can go whistle in the wind as far as I'm concerned :-)

My wife gets into those loopers from time to time.  A pain, but easy to remove with a few minutes of work.
 
She picks them up on legitimate teacher websites that she's used for years.   Go figure.

Remember the old expression:  Curiosity killed the cat.  Don't be curious on the internet.

craigb
Heh, I just read that Forbes won't show any of their content until you turn your ad blocker off and then they have been dumping malware onto people's computers!  Figures.

The real issue is that it is a procedure that Microsoft uses as well as anyone else ... so we saying that something is malware and Microsoft is not ... is bizarre when it is the same thing ... just doing different details!

Even disabling scripts and whitelisting trusted sites may not save you, because everybody seems to want to get in on ad revenue, even respectable website operators. Those ads are managed by a third party, so the host rarely has any control over content. 
 
But you think "I'll just never click on any ad, anywhere, and therefore be safe". As users avoid ad links, advertisers just get more clever in obfuscating them. You can be misled into thinking you're clicking on a legitimate related page, and that trend is just starting to take off. Wait until somebody figures out how to embed malware in a YouTube video.
 
I have, however, not previously heard of ransomware infections via web pages. If that's the case, then this is an entirely new attack vector. The latest (and most widely dispersed) version, called "Locky" is still propagated via email attachments. I've been getting as many as 30 emails per day that claim to have an invoice attached, which is Locky's M.O.

Moshkito

craigb
Heh, I just read that Forbes won't show any of their content until you turn your ad blocker off and then they have been dumping malware onto people's computers!  Figures.

The real issue is that it is a procedure that Microsoft uses as well as anyone else ... so we saying that something is malware and Microsoft is not ... is bizarre when it is the same thing ... just doing different details!

For which Microsoft websites?  Neither microsoft.com nor msn.com (nor outlook.com etc.) b1tch at me for having adblock installed.
 
I find it particularly egregious that these ransomware bastards are targeting hospitals.  I doubt my solution to the problem would be accepted though, probably for being 'too medieval'.

Last week my sister called me to say that her computer crashed. I go over and find that when she turns it on it locks up with a warning screen telling her that the machine is damaged. In the middle of the screen is an 800 number to call Microsoft for help. I didn't call the number because I know that Microsoft never offers to help.
 
I assumed that it was a virus. I asked what the last thing she did with the computer and she said she was trying to download a Yahoo chat app. I'm willing to bet if I'd called that number I would have gotten a ransom demand. She was set up via an online dating site. A guy sends her an email and directs her to an app on the Yahoo site. She tries to get it and bam, PC is a hostage.
 
I reformatted and reinstalled Win 10 and that seems to have killed it. Her loss of data is the price she paid for foolishness. You have to be cynical and distrustful to survive in the 21st century.

John,
 
Something very similar happened to me about a month ago. I lost keyboard and mouse control and saw the message to call an 800 number. I hit the restart button on the case and disconnected the network cable. When I restarted and reconnected, my system was OK. I ran Malwarebytes and ESET anti-virus, and everything seemed fine.
 
My general strategy is to make monthly images of the C drive and copy the image and the data on the D drive to an external drive. Would that work to recover from a ransomware attack? Not sure.
 
Mitch I.

> "Don't click any adverts on web pages either"
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/15/massive_us_malvertising_campaign/
 
Some scarily top-flight websites there, bloody hell.