Samsung Tablet Cyber Police lockout

A customer has had this twice now, so I am documenting how to get rid of it. It presents itself as a locked out tablet, with a message from the local police organisation telling the user that they have been visiting offensive sites, and unless they pay a $200 fine, the tablet will remain locked. Nothing will get past this screen.

Solution – restart in safe mode – this works for a Samsung tablet.

1. Hold the power button down until the device completely powers down.
2. Hold the power button again, and when the Samsung logo appears, hold down the “Volume down” button.
3. The lock screen will appear with SAFE MODE in the lower left corner.
4. Swipe to log on.

When logged on in safe mode, remove the offending app as follows

1. Go into Settings/Application manager
2. Sort the applications by size (option in the menu top right).
3. Scroll down to the apps about 1MB in size, look for something called System Update or similar just under 1MB in size.
4. Click on it and click UNINSTALL
5. Restart the tablet normally.

All done!