What To Do If You Get a Pop-up Box "Message from webpage"

Brief Summary

If you're searching the internet and get a "Message from webpage" pop-up box, STOP!  Immediately shut your computer down and reboot.  When it comes back up, run a virus scan on your computer BEFORE doing anything!

Details

When I was on the site Flickr (a very popular site for uploading your digital images), I received a pop-up box (see below) with the header: "Message from webpage" and the message "hi" in the middle of the box.  The "hi" arose my suspicion.  I knew that I should NOT click the OK button, NOR the X and to NOT click ANYWHERE inside this pop-up box.  I shut down the computer immediately.  (btw: Someone got a similar pop-up while on farmville, only the message was  more legitimate sounding.  If this should happen to you, remember what to do!)

When my computer came back up, I ran a virus scan and it came up clean.  Of course, "if" I had clicked anywhere inside that box, I could have infected my computer.  And, what's worse, it could be code that hi-jacks your browser, without me knowing!  This would have been very serious, as someone could have captured my username and password to on-line accounts.  (Do you see how serious this is???)

I then did some homework and discovered that someone asked Microsoft about this.  The only difference was that instead of the message "hi", a more legitimate sounding message was displayed, namely "Object Required - Undefined".   Microsoft support suggested that one of the causes of this could be from a free third-party tool bar/button(s) installed in Internet Explorer.  Sure enough, the user had installed a "free" third-party toolbar and when she uninstalled it, she stopped getting the pop-up's.  Of course, she then had to run a virus scan to eliminate any lingering viruses or spyware. 

Warning

I am now going to give you advice that needs to be practiced: "NEVER, EVER load free software that will embed itself into your Internet Browser, like free third party tool bars, buttons, etc." 

Why?  Even if some of these third party tools don't intentionally contain a trojan virus or spyware, they do NOT undergo the vigors of security vulnerability testing.  As a result, hackers find a way to compromise them and leave your internet browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) open to be hi-jacked!

Once your computer's internet browser is hi-jacked, someone can steal your username and password for all of your on-line accounts (financial, e-mail, healthcare, etc.)!

Lastly, I don't advocate downloading ANY free software from the internet onto your computer - no matter what that may be - unless it comes from a reliable source (i.e. Microsoft Security Essentials).

 (btw: Bring this to the attention of everyone in your household.)