[PLUG] My Firefox 50.1.0 hack

[Denis Heidtmann]

Is there anybody here who is willing to explain (to a novice) how this is
possible?  I too have encountered a similar behavior, but was fortunate
enough to not have any tabs I needed to save.  I believe when I had the
problem I was running Chrome.

Thanks,
-Denis

On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 1:42 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at gmx.com> wrote:

> 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.
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