What Is The LizaMoon Attack?

   LizaMoon is an "injection" malware attack, a pop-up telling you that "You're Computer Is Infected" and attemps to scare you into downloading needless and rogue "anti-virus software"; it has infected millions of computers since 2010. It looks like a real pop-up warning being issued by Microsoft or your computer's anti-virus program (which you better be running). No need to panic, though. A little information and common sense are all you need to make sure that LizaMoon is nothing more than a minor annoyance.

Will LizaMoon Impact Me?

No. It shouldn't, but if you've experienced a rogue pop-up see below: Rogue Pop-up?! What To Do.

The malicious code injected by LizaMoon redirects visitors from the compromised intended destination to an alternate site pushing rogue anti-malware protection. You will see a pop-up warning that your PC is infected. If you 'Click OK', as you are instructed, the malicious code performs a fake scan of your system indicating a number of detected malware threats. If you click "Remove All" to eradicate the non-existent threats, you will instead download the real malware--the rogue AV software.

There is no reason that any user should ever fall for a rogue AV scam. You should know whether or not you have AV software installed. If you do, you should be familiar enough with it to recognize what the alert messages and system scan look like. More importantly, when the malware gets to the point where it requires payment to download the full version of the rogue AV alarm bells should be going off in your head.

If you don't have any AV software installed, then all you have to do is stop at step one and ask yourself, "if I don't have any AV software installed, how did I just get a warning message indicating my PC might be compromised, and how is my PC running a malware scan?" If that question doesn't occur to you, or you rationalize your way past step one, when you get to step 2 and the malware requests payment to download the rogue AV solution to "fix" your PC, you should ask yourself, "if my PC has software that was able to detect the threat, then scan for and identify the malware on my system, why do I now have to pay to download something else to fix it?"

Amol Sarwate (Vulnerabilities Lab Manager at Qualys.com) sums up this simple common sense thusly: "Users should make themselves aware of the AV running on their system and educate themselves so that they do not fall in trap of rogue AV or other fake applications."

Rogue Pop-up?! What To Do

Any time you encounter one of these rogue pop-ups or page 'redirects' that informs you that your computer is infected and directs you to "Click OK" or "Click To Scan" or "Click To Remove" or to "CLICK" anything ... DO NOT CLICK ANYTHING!
Instead push and hold down these three (3) keys: Ctrl + Alt + Delete.
This will launch your "Task Manager" window. (If the Windows Security window comes-up then click on the "Task Manager" button). Then click-on the "Applications" tab or make sure that you're on the "Applications" page.
You'll be seeing a list of the current applications running on your machine.
You'll see either the rogue 'pop-up' on the list or the page (website) you've been redirected to;
Left click (one click) which ever listing is showing to highlight it.
Then, on the bottom left of the window, click "End Task" ... wait for the action to take place.
That's it.
Be Advised that this action not only will rid you of that 'pop-up' (without it infecting you) but it will also shut-down/close your browser. Just re-launch your browser BUT if when your browser is re-launching it asks you if you want to 'resume' on the page where you were OR to start a new session, START A NEW SESSION.
If your browser re-launches to the same page again (some browsers will) repeat the above actions and the second time around the browser will start a new session.

 Source: Tony Bradley, "LizaMoon Attack: What You Need To Know", PC World


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