	{"id":15987,"date":"2013-07-16T10:31:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T17:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/?p=15987"},"modified":"2015-03-24T15:10:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T22:10:05","slug":"fbi-ransomware-prank-plagues-mac-safari-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/fbi-ransomware-prank-plagues-mac-safari-users\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Ransomware Prank Plagues Mac Safari Users"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FakeFBI.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15997\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FakeFBI.jpg\" alt=\"FBI Ransomware plagues Mac Safari users\" width=\"600\" height=\"415\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FakeFBI.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FakeFBI-150x103.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FakeFBI-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesafemac.com\/fbi-ransomware-virus-rampant\/\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a> lately of an irritating prank that ties up the Safari browsers with excessive pop-up windows purporting to be from the FBI, demanding users send $300 to have their browser unlocked. While this is decidedly an obnoxious tactic, it&#8217;s not harmful to the user&#8217;s system as such, and it can be easily bypassed.<\/p>\n<p>There are two ways you can do this:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Reset Safari<\/strong><br \/>\nIn the Safari menu, choose &#8220;Reset Safari.&#8221; The browser will restart without bringing up the problematic site. It will, however, erase a lot of other historical, saved data.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ResetSafari.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15989\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ResetSafari.png\" alt=\"Reset Safari\" width=\"418\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ResetSafari.png 418w, https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ResetSafari-150x124.png 150w, https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ResetSafari-300x248.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 418px) 100vw, 418px\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Force Quit + Hold Shift Key While Restarting Safari<br \/>\n<\/strong>The other tactic simply targets the function that resumes open windows after a crash, by holding the shift key while starting Safari. First you will need to force-quit Safari as you would expect, either by going to the Apple menu and choosing &#8220;Force Quit&#8221; and choosing to quit Safari, or by using the keyboard-combination Command-Option-Escape to bring up the same window. The second step is to hold the Shift key while restarting Safari, which restarts the browser without restarting any previously open windows.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Further Reading:<\/strong>\u00a0<a title=\"New Ransomware Prank Affects Chrome, Safari Browsers\" href=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/new-ransomware-prank-affects-chrome-safari-browsers\/\" target=\"_blank\">New Ransomware Prank Affects Chrome, Safari Browsers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There have been reports lately of an irritating prank that ties up the Safari browsers with excessive pop-up windows purporting to be from the FBI, demanding users send $300 to have their browser unlocked. While this is decidedly an obnoxious tactic, it&#8217;s not harmful to the user&#8217;s system as such, and it can be easily [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[55,174,109,115],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v17.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There have been reports lately of an irritating prank that ties up the Safari browsers with excessive pop-up windows purporting to be from the FBI,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/fbi-ransomware-prank-plagues-mac-safari-users\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FBI Ransomware Prank Plagues Mac Safari Users - 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