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Clicked on scam website

My father had some emails from your best job . co. uk and evening classifieds . co . uk
He clicked on them and clicked on a link on their website before I noticed these are not legit websites. Closed them down after that.
By visiting the sites and clicking on a link on their page, has our computer been opened to viruses, ware etc.?
They are job search websites and on the front page had jobs located in our area so I'm guessing they got that from our IP address.
Also, how did they get hold of my father's email address?

Comments

  • AndyPix
    AndyPix Posts: 4,847 Forumite
    Fifth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    By visiting the sites and clicking on a link on their page, has our computer been opened to viruses, ware etc.??


    Yep - Download and run malwarebytes from here (decline the option for the free trial of pro)
    https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/thankyou/
    Also, how did they get hold of my father's email address?


    Many many different ways ..
    Harvesting from other online forms that he may have filled in ,
    Clicking an "unsubscribe" link in a previous dodgy email,
    Also , huge lists of email addresses can be purchased by spammers for next to nothing
  • Have run malware bytes which came back with nothing. Running Avira now.
  • Malware Bytes and Avira have detected nothing. I have cleared cookies and cache (I have no idea if that helps).
    I hope to be making some online purchases but don't want to do so if computer is not safe.
    Is there anything else I need to do before continuing?
  • esuhl
    esuhl Posts: 9,409 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    While it's possible to become infected simply by visiting a malicious site, if you have run a scan with Avira and MalwareBytes, I'd imagine you're probably fine.

    If you want to be extra sure, adwCleaner is a good program for clearing up browser-related infections, and sometimes picks up things that MalwareBytes and antiviruses miss:

    https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/

    And I've used SpywareBlaster for years. It downloads lists of malicious websites and then blocks them in your browser so you can't even connect to them. It doesn't need to run all the time, so it doesn't slow down your PC. The free version requires you to update manually, which is easy enough. Make sure you close any open web browsers before you apply the updates, though.

    https://www.brightfort.com/spywareblaster.html
  • jshm2
    jshm2 Posts: 479 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    You're overreacting. They are dubious, yes - but hardly drive by trojan/malware droppers.
  • Sicard
    Sicard Posts: 901 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Also it's worth running RogueKiller which is as good as AdwCleaner but looks for different nasties http://filehippo.com/download_roguekiller/
    You know what uranium is, right? It's this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things.
    Donald Trump, Press Conference, February 16, 2017

  • Cheers all! I will download and run the other recommendations.
This discussion has been closed.
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