My husband's computer received a new tab and associated message from "msoffice-support.us" saying that a problem had been detected and the internet access locked. It instructed him to call a phone number for help. I fixed it but it occurred to me that if he could get malware that blocked his internet, he might also be able to get malware that encrypted his disk or something that wasn't so easy to fix. (He frequents music (jazz) sites and sports video sites.) I have not put extraordinary lock downs on his computer like blocking all active-x or scripts because it would ruin his use of his computer. I confess that I thought that running NS and Malwarebytes would catch extortion type attacks but now, reading this forum, I wonder if they will block any of these. His problem apparently self-launched from a site with NS and Malwarebyte running.
First, is there some way I can keep webpages from modifying browser settings? (Windows 7, IE11) If I receive no detection on a full scan of NS and Malwarebytes, can I assume that restoring internet connectivity has fixed the problems? (Seems too easy.)