If your defenses fail and you get a browser pop-up window, conventional wisdom is to close it by clicking on the red X in the upper right hand corner of the window.  (Never click on any links of Close buttons inside the pop-up window.)  But some clever pop-ups may have spoofed the red X, and clicking on it may be an invitation to download some nasty spyware or a virus.

A safer way to close the pop-up is to right click on the window in the task bar and select “close”.  Or even safer, when the pop-up window is on top, use the quick key combination  CTRL-W.  Or with a particularly nasty pop-up, close your browser using ALT-F4. 

It is your computer after all.  It does not belong to that hacker or that Trojan Horse, or to that poorly crafted program.  But they took over anyway, be it by hijacking, or destructing, or crashing. 

Well, regain control.  It is your computer.  And fight back. 

Check out http://www.stopbadware.org/

Millions of computers have been hijacked by botnets.  They are used to attack others.  It is time to fight back.

Step one:  Shut down that computer when not in use.

Yea, that’s all folks.  Get the word out.

OK, OK, don’t forget the firewall, the antivirus, the antispyware and the updates.  These protect you while online. But when that computer is not in use for any significant amount of time, turn it off.

Trojans and botnets can’t function if the computer is OFF.

More here:

Lockergnome

And here:

Zdnet