Look at the features in the screenshot that set off warning bells for me: (I also reported the bad link on Pinterest) The link I clicked was supposed to take me to an easy-to-sew bow tie pattern, but alas, the craft blog site was either hacked and redirected, or allowed to expire and claimed by someone spammy.

I took a screenshot, then closed the problematic active tab. These machines were infected to a point that we had to physically reload the machines and reset their user profile our standard cleanup tools and procedures were ineffective.ĭuring an evening Pinterest browsing session for some Halloween costume components last night, I experienced the same fake Adobe Flash update. Normally, with a Mac laptop, we can run a couple clean-up tools remotely to reset the browsers and get the user back to their normal browser experience within an hour. ITS was contacted and began clean-up on the machines. Attempts to open new tabs blocked by their firewall, as those pages were leading to other infected and/or inappropriate content.Web browser beeping and talking to them, warning them that their computer was infected.Offers to clean their infected machine.Pop-ups everywhere, for all sorts of products and virus warnings.Some or all of the following symptoms then occurred: Thinking they did indeed need an Adobe Flash update, they clicked. While the users had intended to go to a specific site to gather information for a lesson or check sources for student projects, the resources they were seeking had been hijacked and now housed a nefarious hacking tool. These users were all performing seemingly normal tasks on Chrome, clicked on a link to go to a specific site, and the link popped up a series of Adobe Flash update prompts. Our techs have seen a few machines (Mac laptops specifically) come through recently that have fallen victim to the same fake Adobe Flash update prompt.

How to get adobe flash on mac