I was brought up with free love - Intel UK's John Woodget
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PC fraudsters pose as Microsoft Windows employees
COMPUTER HACKERS are taking to the phones, tricking users by pretending to work for Microsoft.
The insecurity firm Trusteer revealed details of a unique-sounding attack, where a user receives a phone call from somebody claiming to be from Microsoft Windows Solutions.
One of the Vole's customers fell for this sales patter, and allowed the fraudster to lead her to a website that had software enabling remote access to her computer. The fraudster then showed the victim a long list of files he claimed were viruses. The victim was then transferred to the fake Microsoft employee's 'supervisor'.
She said, "The supervisor showed me yet more virus files, which he said were located in a hidden part of the computer and he couldn't therefore clean it up without Windows 7 being installed (I run Vista), and some new security software."
The fraudsters then tried to sell her a £300 security application, which they said they could provide more cheaply.
The victim added, "As he rang off, he warned me that my computer was in very bad shape and would crash any day."
"The call lasted around 20 minutes and I feel like such an idiot to have been taken in for that length of time, and very nervous that they had all the time in the world to infect my computer."
It sounds like she was almost taken in by another version of a ploy used by hackers to make victims pay for security software by riddling their PCs with malware.
INQUIRER readers who know technology might not be taken in, but there are people out there who are much more susceptible to such scams. µ
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When I had them ring me late last year, I said to them don't worry about it I will just format my Hard Drive. The person then said "No, No, No, don't do that, it will scratch the disk"
Mat, what makes you think they are based in the UK?? trading standards dont have jurasdiction where these scammers reside and most likely the host nation don't care. Besides whats wrong with leading them a dance if you cant report them at least run up their phone bill a bit.
Thought this was a news site. This has been happening for well over a year now and has been covered by everyone, except obviously here....
And for anyone gets calls and has the time, just get enough info (website, telephone number, company name) and report them to trading standards.
Every time this story comes up there are loads of people who post proud that they detected the scam and led the scammers around a bit. Do something usefull with the scamming and get them to give you a number to phone them back on, so you can report them. This will actually help the real targets of these scams, the users who don't know any better....
Been having a few of these for months now, as an It professional I enjoy leading them a merry dance by acting like a complete dumbass and getting all their instructions wrong.
As for you Linux chunky sweaters, who cares what OS you have and how it's hackproof, that's because ultimately it's used only for making the OS work and feck all else, we get that now please JOG ON. Tjis isn't about OS insecurity it's about users falling for a new angle on Scams. sheesh
I recently had a friend who had this happen; he called me after the event in a panic as he had given them access to his system.
They got him to use logmein rescue (www.logmein123.com) to take remote control and then ran a cmd prompt and typed in “%systemroot% virus” and informed him all the files on the page was a virus.
They then sent him to a website and showed him 3 packages of virus protection and informed him he should go for the gold one (most expensive) around £60 per year but charged 3 years in advanced otherwise it would be a higher price.
When I scanned the system I found it was infested with malware, and a nice root kit hiding a randomly named exe with a creation date and time corresponding to the time of the phone call.
But don't actually do anything to your computer, as the scammer asks you to do so - just tell them that you have done so. And eventually, go visit this page and find a response that appeals to you: http://www.ehow.com/how_2242923_have-fun-tormenting-telemarketers.html
Please pass this on to your non-technical friends.
My Dad is great in his chosen field, which happens not to be computers. He knows better than to fall for a scam like this, but if he's surfing a Web site that has embedded auto-installing malware, he's pretty much immune, thanks to my having put GNU/Linux on his computer (CentOS 5, for its way-long security update support). This has eased my support burden enormously, as he lives far enough away from me that I can't just reinstall his OS if/when his computer gets "pwn3d".
Yes, I know, this particular attack also had a major social engineering compenent to it. But surfing to malware-infested Web sites is a problem whether there's a phone call or not (consider the recent London Stock Exchange ad-malware debacle).
Microsoft platforms are just too vulnerable on the Internet. Mac OS X is somewhat better, but the "Cult of Jobs" and a company that repeatedly denies actual problems with its wares just doesn't appeal to me. So, GNU/Linux it is. And my favored flavour is Ubuntu for its wide support and ease of use.
Loads of them, so much so that I'm thinking of dropping my land line- we get 2 or 3 a week,
Supposedly from Microsoft, Antivirus vendors, ISPs, banks, etc.
I used to put the phone down, but recently I had one Asian "Shaun" who kept phoning until I gave him some verbal abuse.
Normally I'd just quietly put the phone on one side and let them waste their time but as they mentioned infected computers I thought I'd have some fun. When they asked what version of Windows I had so I they could try to remote access I said Linux - which is true and they said "No, no - all computers run Windows. Is it Xp, Vista.. ?"
At this point I quietly put the phone to one side.