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When Antivirus Scammers Call the Wrong Guy
ancientribe writes "Phony AV scammers posing as Microsoft dialed the wrong number when they inadvertently phoned a security researcher at home. He lured them into a honeypot to study their actions, and posted the video online here. His main takeaway: they were 'Stone Age' when it came to their tech know-how."
So they're exactly like Norton, McAfee, and CA?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I got a similar call to the guy in the article. So I hung up.
They called back, and I hung up again except the phone didn't hang up. I even held down the "on hook" button but the call would not terminate. Any ideas how the scammers accomplished this?
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Scammers (and spammers) wouldn't do this stuff if it didn't pay off.
Even though these guys were idiots, they still manage to scam people. So what does that say about their victims? Ugh.
Where are the calls coming from? Probably India or some impoverished nation. Some of the people working in those call centers really need the $2.00 a day that they make so that they can feed their family.
I'd do some shady shit too if I had to in order to survive and so would you. So don't judge too harshly and don't yell or belittle the guy on the phone. Don't hate the player, hate the game...
Hardly surprising their tech know-how was stone-age. If they were actually competent, they wouldn't be running some lame over-the-phone scam like this. They would either be working a legitimate job or running a large-scale botnet somewhere. The vast majority of criminals are stupid, because smart people either don't get into crime or don't do low-level crap like this.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Happened just the other day. They didn't claim to be from Microsoft, though. I asked the caller what OS was on my computer, and she said "Either XP or 7". I don't have any Windows systems in my house, and the call was interrupting something else I wanted to do, so I just said "Wrong!" and hung up.
I say "Okay, hold on a moment please." I then leave the phone call active, put the phone on my desk or something and do something else until they get bored.
Reboot the PC. Just after POST (power on self test), tap the F8 key once a second to invoke Windows boot options. Choose "Safe Mode". Click the Start button and type in MSCONFIG. Select "Normal Startup" under the General tab. Reboot again and all should be well. Assuming you didn't provide CC info or let them install any other application.
I'd love to know what public IP they're hiding behind.
Life is not for the lazy.
These "Dave from Houston" fuckheads have called my house repeatedly. Unfortunately, I haven't been home to screw with them. Even my wife felt bad for these pitiful lamebrains when she told them none of our computers run Windows. And then these disorganized half-wits can't remember the FAILED on their previous calls, so they call back again.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I've been called by these morons five (yes, FIVE) times so far. Lately, they've taken to calling me at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. Now, getting a call from a scammer is annoying - getting a call from a scammer in the middle of the night when you're sound asleep makes you want to stab someone in the throat. Or maybe that's just me...
I hope these pricks die in a fire.
I had one of these guys on the line a while back. Coincidentally while I was fixing some issues with the PC at my computer-illiterate parents' house. Apparently they called a few times before but they only spoke english (with a very heavy indian accent) and my dad wouldn't even know how to order a beer in english, so their "conversations" ended without any harm done.
They directed me to try all different kinds of command line tools that would display long lists of errors (which is was supposed to do on a healthy system). I checked everything he told me to do by first searching on google and within a few minutes I got to a webpage detailing the phone script the scammers were using.
Oddly enough I told him that I was checking everything on Google first and even told him I found this website, but we still went on for nearly 15 minutes or so (he was paying for the phone bill, I could see no harm in making it expensive). I kept asking him questions and calling him out on his lies (literally calling it lies), but still he kept going. At some point it was all some morbid curiosity trip for me, eager to find out how far this could possibly go. He even kept talking after I told him I had enough fun and was going to hang up. I can't quite understand why he kept wasting so much of his time when I identified him as a scammer after the first two minutes and told him so.
I can understand how they could fool a less informed computer user though.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Right, like the script kitties could tell they where dealing with a Mac much less have a workable scam for Mac they could talk the hapless Apple user though over the phone. If it ain't windows, they ain't getting anywhere cause they usually only know windows.
Before my ISP started blocking port 80,I ran an Apache web server on a stand alone Linux box in my DMZ that had nothing but a single HTML page on it. 99.99% of the access logs where exploits that only worked on Windows products and multiple break in attempts where from the same IP over and over. If they where too ignorant to look at the server type before they tried to break in, or if they somehow figured that what didn't work 15 seconds ago might work this time then it sure fits the view that they are pretty unsophisticated in their approaches when they are trying to break in.
Just running an OS other than Windows offers significant protection from the bulk of web based attacks. Not that it makes breaking in any harder mind you, it's just that most of the "hackers" out there don't know the difference between Red Hat, Ubuntu or Windows and usually cannot even understand what an IP address is much less a TCP port because they just run the tool somebody else wrote for them. These folks don't scare me.
Of course there are a FEW folks who don't fall into what I call "Script Kitties" class, and they are really the dangerous ones because they understand that it is not the breaking in, but the exploitation of getting access that matters. Most of these guys/gals are not going to call you on your phone unless they have reason to target you, and you can bet they won't resort to such low tech methods described in this article.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Three months ago i got a similar call, recorded the conversation (me playing the silly user and him trying to scam me) and forgot to put it online.
So here it is slashdot, i created this page just for you:
http://barrystaes.nl/scambait/
(click the AMR file, its the original file my Android phone recorded and 10x smaller)
Hivemind harvest in progress..
I have a rule for dealing with telemarketers - if they admit they're telemarketing right away, I'll nicely tell them I'm not interested. If they lie, then anything goes. Here's what happened to someone that called me from a "security company:"
...
Her: Is the business owner there?
Me: Are you telemarketing?
Her: No.
Me: Ok, this is the owner, how can I help you?
Her: Are you aware of the security threats faced by businesses that use the internet?
Me: Oh, yes, I'm well aware of threats. There are all sorts of threats when you're in business.
Her: Does your business use PCs?
Me: Security is a big problem, lawsuits.
Her: Ok, well, we offer a comprehensive...
Me: Because you know, you can be sued for all sorts of things. Employers can be sued by their employees. Business owners have to be very careful.
Her: (Trying to get back to her script) Yes, I'm aware of that. Well anyway, if your business is one of the millions...
Me: For instance, sexual harassment lawsuits, those are a huge concern if you're in business.
Her: I don't think that's
Me: Do you realize that people can sue their employer for harassment just because they receive unwanted sexual advances while at work?
Her: No, I didn't, but...
Me: (whispering) So... what are you wearing?
I've had numerous calls like this. I've taken a number of different stances on dealing with it. On the last one I didn't really have the time or patience so it went like this:-
Them: "Sir, we are ringing you about the errors on your computer".
Me: "Oh, this scam again, trying to get money from people that don't know any better. I don't know how you get away with it, you should be ashamed or yourselves, ashamed!"
Them: "Brrrrrrr....".
Quickest hang up yet. Felt kinda sorry for the poor woman reading the script but if you're gonna work for 'Evil Inc.' then that's what you get.
Other good tactics:
"Oh, I'm out of work, actually could you lend me fifty quid?"
"This is GCHQ madam, the UK government security center - it is a criminal offence to have access to our secure servers. Are you a terrorist?"
"On mondays my papa sings my happy song, huh, huh, huh"
Since they have a script maybe we should make one for us, just to see how they like it :-)
Most of them know better than to say actual company names so they usually start with something like:
"Hello, Sir, I am calling from Windows Computer..."
Which I usually state what's windows computer, never heard of em... etc. Some of the other posts do give me more ideas. :-D
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Right, like the script kitties could tell they where dealing with a Mac...
I just had this adorable image in my head of a bunch of kittens (picture Royale commercials) gamboling around an iMac, batting the mouse around, laying on the top of the monitor and pawing at the screen, puzzled innocence in their wide blue eyes as they try to figure out where the food comes out. Awww... :)
I think the term is actually 'script kiddies', due to the (usual) youth of the wanna-be bad asses. It's simply the difference between the voiced alveolar stop 'd' and the voiceless alveolar stop 't', so it's easy to misinterpret in speech.
Okay, phonetics info-break over, now back to your regularly scheduled discussion...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
I've gotten a few of these calls. Some idiot with a foreign accent claiming to be "from Windows" (seriously, those were their words).
... just the phone call ;)
My mom gotten them too; she immediately hangs up the phone. One of the scammers actually the gall to call her not two seconds later to scold her that hanging up the phone was rude!
I have a similar idea to this guy, except I'd make a little more fun, though I wasn't sure it would work until now. I'm delighted to see that they use a remote control program. My plan is to let them into a sandboxed VM where I'll have prepared a webpage that launches 500 goatse popups or something. I'll record my session, too, but, uh
I can't wait to get another one of these calls.
*rubs hands together with an evil grin*
How can you be that knowledgeable about computers and exploits and still use the word "where" four times in two paragraphs when you should've used "were"? This is why they think they can get away with it, people - an enormous lack of linguistic awareness!
Why was this happening from an otherwise excellent program? Single Core CPU trying to run multithreaded code I suspect (yes, multithreaded code actually SLOWS DOWN due to overheads it has, on 1 core systems).
It's simple: Microsoft makes money on every non-Apple computer sold. If they can slow your old box down enough to frustrate you, you'll buy a new computer and they've sold another copy of Windows.
I suspect this is why Windows runs slower and slower as the machine ages. I suspect it's engineered to, just to make you buy a new PC!
Back when I upgraded from 98 to XP, I'd just done a wipe and reinstall of 98 a week before installing XP (got XP because I stupidly forgot to check to see if I had driver disks for hardware and none of the drivers were available on the internet for 98, only XP). One of the installation screens bragged that XP was faster than 98. Well, it was faster than 98 was before I reinstalled 98, but actually a little slower than the freshly installed 98.
The best free AV is Linux.
Free Martian Whores!