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[BritBrat]

Hackers are tricking internet users into buying anti-virus protection and then stealing their banking details, security experts have warned.

news.sky.com

[kitz]

One in four adult web users in Britain have been approached by someone offering to check their computer for viruses, according to research by the group.

 

[roseway]

That last quote is a bit odd. I wonder what they mean by 'approached'?

But it's certainly worth reminding people over and over again to be wary of anything they're tempted to download, and I would suggest that you should never download anything in response to a popup or a cold call.

[sevenlayermuddle]

I've had at least three calls in the last month or so from an Indian-sounding accent, wanting to 'warn me about computer security'.  OK, it's blindingly obvious to most of us that's going to be a scam, but I can easily believe it's being done on a large enough scale to have a good statistical chance of reaching the odd vulnerable user.

Personally I like to keep them talking as long as possible as, while they're talking to me, they're not scamming somebody else.  My latest indulgence is to ask callers for a 'security code', explaining that as Mr Muddle's phone is a secure home office line (Well, DECT phones are reasonably 'secure', and the base-station is in the 'Office' within my home).  It passes the time.  

[kitz]

7LM - Ive heard about what sounds similar. 
Although I havent personally received one myself, this is part of a PM I received in May this year from someone I know, who unfortunately isnt very technical:/

I think the company is based in India.
Some random IT company called log4rescue (or something like that) rang up yesterday to say that i had a virus.
They asked me to press the explorer key and G (i think) R button to get the event window open. To see the problem they said type eventvwr
I hung up at this stage.
However today my computer is making silly computer game / police car type noises when i turn on MS explorer.
Are these two things linked and how do i get rid of them or any viruses?

[kitz]

Because the above was 6 months ago, I was curious at the current situation
...... and came across this just yesterday ago from Computer Active's blog, which gives a link to a rather interesting video of what it is they do.

Computeractive 15th November 2010

You may have heard reports today that cold callers are installing malicious software on victims' PCs. We've just confirmed, though, that there's no evidence of this at all - sadly there's some bad information going around.

Our video below shows how the scam really works.
Exposed: how a cold-call 'PC service' company tried to mislead us - 23 Jul 2010 - Computeractive

[BritBrat]

Oh God mines infected too.

I think I will ignore them

At least posts like this make people think, but I know quite a few computer users who would fall for this scam.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Yes... that could easily be the direction my calls were heading.  

I'd be interested to hear them out next time, like the guy on the phone did, and so figure out exactly what they were up to.  Trouble is, even if the scam is unsuccessful, such apparent gullibility could easily lead to my phone number being added to a 'gullible suckers' list and passed to a million and one other scammers.

Safer just to hang up, or take the P for a while, then hang up.

[BritBrat]

Do you think they get remote access later on?

[BritBrat]

One friend has just phoned me and got stung.

Well I hope not but he let them remote access his computer.

Any advice?

I have told him to virus scan his computer and phone his bank.

Also told him to unplug computer from net tonight.

[sevenlayermuddle]

One friend has just phoned me and got stung.

Well I hope not but he let them remote access his computer.

Any advice?

I have told him to virus scan his computer and phone his bank.

Also told him to unplug computer from net tonight.

I'm not sure what to suggest.  I'm actually  beginning to think that SupportOnClick (if that's who called your friend) may not be malicious software as such, but maybe it is simply normal support software that is being sold by malicious and fraudulent tactics.  If that's the case, your friend wouldn't have much to worry about - other than to make sure he doesn't enter into any agreements, or pay them any money.

I think you're right about a virus scan.   Also, this would perhaps be a good time for your friend to take DVD backups of any important personal files, just in case anything horrible is about to happen?

And, if he's using windows and has system restore enabled, your friend may want to think about doing a system restore to some point before the scam.  I can't guarantee it will remove any nasties, and I can't even guarantee it won't do harm but personally, I'd be inclined to do so...

[BritBrat]

He never paid them anything and they were trying to sell to him so I told him it may not be that bad.

Got to get back to him in  a minute and take him down an anti virus program.

[kitz]

>> Well I hope not but he let them remote access his computer.


The one I had a look at in May, was actually clean - well sorta if you know what I mean, and the 'other thing' was actually unrelated and more of a co-incidence and came from elsewhere.

I said to the guy, there is no way that they can know from the 'other end' that your PC is infected and they are using event viewer to scare users into thinking that it is.

From what I can gather, the main scam is to allow them to remote access, and then fork out a hefty fee for 'cleaning' up the PC, that basically just were normal windows notifications which the average user would never see because they are within event viewer.
Once those are all deleted, the victim them probably feels that his PC is 'clean', but if it WAS genuinely infected the company probably wouldnt even bother looking at that.


The Report by Computer Active "sadly there's some bad information going around.", would also seem to suggest that leaving malious software on the PC to track info afterwards is baloney.

I would imagine the scammers are simply using something like TeamViewer to remote access, and then just deleting events in the windows logs, whilst charging a nice fee for the privilege of doing basically nothing.
One thing that does strike me is that due to these scammers not really cleaning up Windows machines, and because they are preying on the niave, is that those users who report their computers have been compromised...  could well have got trojans from other sources.