0

My wife just told me that earlier today she received a prompt on her laptop to change her password, and complied with the request. Her laptop is running a vanilla install of Windows 7, 64-bit. All of the system settings should be at defaults.

I've used several Windows 7 machines, and do not recall ever being prompted by the OS to change my password. So my first thought is that it sounds like a virus or malware app has scammed her out of her password (both her old one, and the new one that she changed it to). However, it seemed prudent to ask; is this something that Windows 7 actually does? Legitimately?

The prompt to change passwords supposedly originated from the system tray, although whatever icon requested the change no longer appears there. And apparently what happened is that after the prompt was acknowledged, the laptop went to the standard Windows 7 login screen, and prompted for the old account password and a new one.

If this isn't a legitimate feature of Windows 7, is there a known virus/malware app that attempts to steal passwords by triggering a bogus prompt in the system tray?

Improve this question
1
  • This sure sounds like a virus to me. Do a virus check.
    – Xavierjazz
    Commented Feb 16, 2015 at 15:31

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

This is a thing on Windows Servers, but i've never heard of it on a client machine.

Probably do a virus scan, change your passwords, etc.

Improve this answer
2
  • This isn't really an answer to the question. Helpful suggestions that are not a definitive solution should be posted as a comment, which requires a little more rep.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Mar 14, 2015 at 1:00
  • Yeah, I had to post as an answer because my rep is too low D:
    – Mitch
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 2:30

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .