"You have malware" Phone Call Scam – First hand account – and a 'heads up' by Hootiegibbon

New scam on old streets…

This was reported by a good friend of mine on a PCLinuxOS forum. Here is the link to the entire thread

Peoples of the wonderful PCLinuxOS forum,

I had heard of this scam although I had not previously been a target, I live in the UK but understand this is becoming a problem the world over.

This evening I received a call from a lady – the call originated from what sounded like a call center.

The lady asked for me by name.

She went on to explain that my computer was sending out Malware, she gave a fairly comprehensive explanation of malware and that it had been spotted by there R&D department who monitor ‘these things’ for 7 countries.

I started to ask some questions , who they were, this changed slightly during the conversation with webtec design web tech and I think Web sec (the caller ‘fluffs’ over this information and tries to redirect your attention back to the mater t hand, your infected PC.

I managed to get her to confirm that her call was connected via a VOIP system and that they are based in India.

The conversation became some what disjointed – as she became suspicious of my probing, i then turned to speak about the ‘infected computer’ she explained taht there was a lot of malware being sent from my windows computer and this in turn was infecting other computers…

at this point I said (and I would have stayed with the call further to attempt to obtain further detail about this scam unfortunately to really could not spare the time ) my windows computer? she said yes, it is unfortunately infected, I stated to her that I am really interested now, she said we can help, – I stated no, not interested in what you are proposing but interested as I DO NOT USE WINDOWS PC!

The line went dead, who’d a thunk it eh?

So I post this as a warning and heads up, please tell your friends that are still using windows I was unable to get to the route of the scam, but yu can bet it involes eithetr a credit card , advisng what iP address you are at for remote help, or bank details to pass verbally.

Please link to this if you like from other sites or quote me, this kind of blatant exploitation of those less aware should be stamped out, the only way this can be done is by raising the awareness of it

Jase

Thanks for the heads up Jase.

Andy

AndrzejL

"Never meet Your heroes. Most of the time you'll only end up disappointed." White Polak Male Husband Employee Hetero Carnivorous Fugly Geek @$$hole with ADD Catholic “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

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