My Windows 10 Sony Vaio laptop has been hacked, how can I revise

[Richard Bertone]

I made the dumb mistake to believe I got a call from Microsoft telling me that my Windows license expired, and I have to log into their site for instructions, that's when they locked me out and wanted extortion money.

 

[TechFreak1]

Which Sony Vaio Model?



Depending on your model number, you can remove the hard drive and plug it in a external hdd caddy then use another machine to retrieve your data.

What I'd recommend is downloading VMWare player and using the Windows 10 iso direct from Microsoft to create a virtual machine. Also make you sure install a proper heavy duty firewall and anti virus on the host computer and set to scan everything, increase all heuristics to maximum, to scan for all malware including rootkits (some have it off by default... which is baffling to say the least). Disconnect from the internet and retrieve your data whilst in the virtual machine. So should the worm spread, if done correctly it would be isolated to the virtual machine. You can use the fsecure internet security trial, be weary it is an absolute resource hog as it's a very heavy duty firewall.

You can extract your data by speedily dragging files across the virtual machine window boundary, however before doing so make sure you also install the firewall and anti virus in the virtual machine. So that means everything will get scanned twice so you can be assured malware doesn't transfer across.

Or alternatively create a WinPE boot drive and try to remove the rogue exe from the system manually.

In windows 7 or 8 you could work out someone of them using the directory services repair mode or safe mode with command prompt and use file open dialogue box to delete the offending files.

Lastly you could take it a service centre and get them to retrieve your data, although be weary there is usually a cost for data retrieval. If you have a Microsoft store next you then you can see if they can help. Although I wouldn't recommend it, simply because if they are careless and malware is sophisticated enough it can spread to their systems. A similiar incident happened to the NHS in the UK, where many computers were held for ransom (the wannacry ransomware incident).

 

[covfefe]

That's not hacked. Someone called you, you logged into a non microsoft.com site and gave them a bunch of your details. Then they encrypted your machine.

Reformat your PC, lose everything, start again, change all of your passwords, pin numbers, house key, legal name, and probably best to swap out your family for good measure also.

And for the love of god please learn a lesson from this.

Also please report this to the police so they can trace the call, but I guarantee it will be from overseas.