[PLUG] My Firefox 50.1.0 hack

John Jason Jordan johnxj at gmx.com
Sat Jan 14 21:42:27 UTC 2017


Firefox 50.1.0 on Xubuntu 14.04 up to date. 

I clicked on a link that took me to wik.galert.info (DON'T GO THERE!).
This page pops up a little window warning me that authentication is
required, and the window claims that there is a virus that is sending
my credit card, etc., and that this notice is from Microsoft
(including Microsoft logos on the page). Naturally, I'm not so stupid
that I would respond to what is surely phishing. However, I haven't
found a way to close the popup window or the tab. I shut down Firefox
and then restarted it, but at the time I had several windows open, each
with numerous tabs, so to restore my session I clicked on History >
Restore previous session. This brought back the offending tab and its
popup window. There is also a long repeating audio message "critical
alert from Microsoft." And the mouse is disabled everywhere on Firefox.

What is interesting is that this window and the tab cannot be closed.
In fact, I cannot close any of the tabs in any of the windows. But I
was able to bookmark each tab, so I could shut down Firefox and then
recreate my windows and tabs, except the offending tab, of course.

I have never had an experience like this. I am curious how they hacked
Firefox so the user cannot close tabs or popups.



More information about the PLUG mailing list