Phone Scammers Call The Wrong Guy, Get Mad & Trash His Pc

[ritchie58]

Have you ever received a call from someone with a heavy Indian accent from Microsoft saying your computer had errors or viruses? The purpose of these calls is to get an easy $299 (or whatever amount they choose) by scaring you into thinking there’s something really wrong with your computer and that they can fix it for you.

These telephony scams have been going on for many years and scammers keep robbing innocent people sadly because their success ratio is still worth their time and effort. It happens that I got ‘the call’ while minding my own business on a regular work day. I immediately recognized what this was all about and decided to play the game to see how far this would go.

The caller’s number did not appear on my phone, a sign that they were using some Voice over IP (VoIP) or such technology that both completely hides their identity and costs them nothing for long distance calls.

This scam is a well-oiled machine which starts off with the alleged Microsoft representative asking you to turn on your computer to perform some checks for errors. They essentially make you open different applications which aren’t typically known by regular users.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FDJWixw4TCI

 

About the author:

Jerome Segura is a Senior Security Researcher at Malwarebytes with experience in both client and server side malware and a focus on web exploits research. He has built high interaction honey-clients to capture drive-by download attacks and has performed hundreds of web server remediations for infected WordPress and Joomla! websites.

[Zurchiboy]

I saw an article about that in malwaretips I believe. Hopefully we don't get targeted. but you never know. Wonder what else they well use to scam.

[ritchie58]

There are variations on the same theme. For instance, a scammer might call you telling you they're from Microsoft and try to convince you that you are infected with malware. Have you install a legtimate peer to peer software like TeamViewer and then they install a Fake AV (ransomware) where you have to pay to be able to use your computer again because they've changed or enabled the Windows logon password of their own choosing or some other nefarious method that essentially locks you out of your own computer until you pay up. Or you could get a BSOD and then a pop up message saying something like:You are infected with a virus! Upgrade to the Pro version to fix this problem! Buy Now!

 

Most of the time the people who use this type of phone scam speak in a heavy Indian accent. However there have been reports of similar activity originating from Bolgaria, the Ukraine, China and unfortunately the U.S.A too.

[ritchie58]

Here is an informative video by SourceFire Inc. on the subject:

 

[Zurchiboy]

That is a very informative video. I will share it with friends so they don't fall for it. first video. I laughed when the guy said that rude goodbye. I will remember that. I will get a virtual PC set up if I get called so I can just screw around in an area and then say a rude good bye to them.