That sucks about your friend. I can relate.
Scammers hacked my elderly mother on her windows laptop. They tricked her with an ad saying there was a problem with her computer, and they had her install remote access software. She mentioned seeing the terminal so I assumed they installed (at least) a keylogger. Luckily, they either ran out of time, or their con took two days, but they said they were going to call my mom the next day and have her log in to the bank to make sure her computer was still working.
So, I wiped her computer and installed Linux Mint with auto updates set up. She only had one simple question about logging in to google chrome and that’s been it for the last month. She has just been using it no problem.
Side note: The next day the scammers had the nerve to call my mom and ask her why her computer was turned off.
That’s why they had her dress as Marilyn Monroe in American Gods