What is “Windows Key Code Is Not Valid And Seems Pirated”?

Windows Key Code Is Not Valid And Seems Pirated appears to be a new scary scam approach used to trick Windows users. Banners with this prompt may appear out of nowhere, and can really scare inexperienced users. Let me explain to you what’s the matter with this banner, if you really have any issues, and how to avoid such notifications in future.

Windows Key Code Is Not Valid And Seems Pirated – Is that true?

First and foremost – no. The banner with this statement is a scam – the one which aims to make you call the fake tech support. Notifications about the invalid licence key are accompanied by even stranger notices about malware detection and accounts ban. Though, let me explain all things in their order.

Despite having a pretty straightforward licence control system, Microsoft does not have any licence warnings in the web browser. This, however, is not that clear for people who never had to deal with the licence in Windows. As you can see on the screenshot above, hackers mimic the Microsoft official website, setting it as the background. However, the key accent is made on a banner which states strange (to say the least) things. Somehow they conjoined the “Windows key is invalid”, “Banking trojan detected” and “accounts may be banned” prompts on the same frame. And, as it usually happens in such scams, there is a phone number you should call to receive “tech support”. To force your interaction with the page, hackers open this page in the fullscreen mode, making it impossible to switch to another tab.

The banners on the background you can interact with also contain similar claims. Though, their contents are as questionable as on the “main” message.

Text of scam banners

A lot of users are not aware of how Windows licences work, even though this OS is dominant on the market. Most often, they purchase the device with pre-installed Windows – and never open the licence activation tab. Though some people activate it using third-party utilities that actually hack the Windows Key Management Service. Such an activation approach is illegal, as you may suppose, and the keys used for that trick are getting banned by Microsoft from time to time. These two things are two bearing points of the Windows Key Code Is Not Valid And Seems Pirated scam.

Is it dangerous?

As any other tech support scam, it is at best threatening to your personal information. In the phone call, pseudo tech support managers will ask you about email, name, surname, phone number, or even home address. Such data is invaluable for further phishing attempts or doxxing. Though, it is not the worst case scenario.

In some situations, fake support will ask you to give them remote access to your system. Crooks may ask you to install specific software for that purpose, even when you already have one. Then, this “support team” may perform whatever gnarly thing they want – but most often it is an installation of a rogue antivirus or some other questionable program. Further, this program(s) will likely start demanding you to pay.

Remember what I’ve told you about a third-party remote access tool? Such a disguise is perfect for malware that aims at remote access, particularly backdoors and remote-access trojans. Threat actors may also offer a spoofed downloading link, which gives out a malicious copy instead of a genuine program. Following any of such links is pretty risky, especially considering that fake support managers never disdained spreading malware in their campaigns.

How did the Windows Key Code Is Not Valid scam appear?

The main way this page appears in your web browser is related to adware activity. This malware type is exceptionally widespread, as it brings money to its masters by showing unwanted ads in the infected systems. In this case, it operates with an entire scam scheme. By opening the website with Windows Key Code Is Not Valid And Seems Pirated scam, malware tries to bait the victim to catch the rascals on the phone. These crooks will do the rest – and kindly reward guys who lead adware for “good” jobs.

What should I do?

1. Close the Windows Key Code Is Not Valid page

Malware tries to make the scam page look like an overlaying banner. However, it isn’t – in fact, you see just a website opened in a fullscreen mode. Quit to the normal view using the Esc button and close the tab as usual. In the cases when the website blocks the input keys (it happens sometimes), it is possible to use Task Manager to close up the tab. Call for the latter using Ctrl+Shift+Esc key combination – the site cannot intercept it. Then, find the task that corresponds to the browser where the banner appeared and kill the process.

2. Run anti-malware software scan

As I’ve told above, the Windows Key Code Is Not Valid scam site cannot appear without outside interference. Most probably, you have an adware or browser hijacker running in the system. Aside from this exact page, you could also have noticed excessive ads appearing on all websites you visit, strange browser behaviour and changed search engine. All these things are definite symptoms of adware activity. I’d recommend GridinSoft Anti-Malware as a superior software for solving such issues. Use it to scan your system and remove all the intruders.

3. Reset browser settings

Even though adware is not a very complicated malware, it still applies a lot of changes to your system to provide sustainability. Living with these changes in place is not the best option, as they will most likely affect your browser performance and experience. There is a manual way to reset browser settings, but I’d recommend using GridinSoft Anti-Malware for that purpose: it can reset all browsers together in one click.