Take a breath. Your computer is almost certainly fine.
Microsoft and Apple never put a phone number on your screen. Neither does your bank, your internet provider, or any real antivirus. A warning that gives you a number to ring is a scam, without exception. There is no version of this that turns out to be genuine.
The beeping, the countdown, the voice telling you not to shut down — all of it exists to stop you thinking clearly for long enough to pick up the phone.
Closing it
The window is a web page pretending to be a system alert. It has no power over your computer at all.
On Windows: press and hold Alt then tap F4. If that doesn’t do it, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, find your web browser in the list, click it, and choose End task.
On a Mac: press Command + Option + Esc, select your browser, and click Force Quit.
If neither works, just hold the power button until the machine switches off, count to ten, and turn it back on. You will not break anything.
When your browser reopens it may offer to restore the previous tabs. Say no. That’s how the page comes back.
If you already rang the number
This is the part that matters, and the part nobody wants to admit to. Please don’t be embarrassed — these scams are engineered by people who do this full time, and they catch careful, intelligent people every single day. We see it constantly. Nobody here will make you feel stupid about it.
Work through this in order:
- Disconnect from the internet. Unplug the network cable, or turn off Wi-Fi. This ends their access immediately.
- Do not use that computer for anything else until it’s been checked.
- On a different device — your phone, a family member’s computer — change the passwords for your email first, then your banking, then anything else important. Email first, because it’s the key to resetting everything else.
- Ring your bank if you gave them any card or account details, or if you let them onto a machine where you do your banking. Tell them exactly what happened; they deal with this every day.
- Bring the computer in. If somebody had remote access, the machine needs checking properly — not just a virus scan.
Why we take it seriously
Anyone who talked their way onto your computer had the same access you do. That means saved passwords, browser sessions, documents, everything. A quick scan won’t tell you what they did while they were in there, and it won’t find software they left behind deliberately.
Bring it in and we’ll go through it properly.
Stopping it happening again
There’s nothing to install and nothing to buy. These pages arrive through ordinary web browsing — a dodgy ad, a mistyped address, a link in an email. Keeping your browser updated helps, and an ad blocker helps a good deal more.
Mostly it’s just knowing the rule, which is worth telling anyone in the house who uses the computer:
A real warning never gives you a phone number. Ever.
If you’re not sure — and there’s no shame in not being sure — ring us instead. We’d far rather spend two minutes telling you it’s nothing than spend two days undoing what happens when it isn’t.