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Regulators Smash Global Phone Tech Support Scam Operation

Posted by Soulskill on from the grarrr-ftc-smash dept.

SternisheFan sends this excerpt from ZDNet: "Regulators from five countries joined together in an operation to crack down on a series of companies orchestrating one of the most widespread Internet scams of the decade. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other international regulatory authorities today said they shut down a global criminal network that bilked tens of thousands of consumers by pretending to be tech support providers. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, speaking during a press conference with a Microsoft executive and regulators from Australia and Canada, said 14 companies and 17 individuals were targeted in the investigation. In the course of the crackdown, U.S. authorities already have frozen $188,000 in assets, but Leibowitz said that would increase over time thanks to international efforts."

3 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Where were they getting the phone numbers? by houghi · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_dialing

    Do you really think they care or take trying anything else?

    It still amazes me that people here think that cyber criminals are some sort of super efficient people who want to try to have a hit each and every time.

    People like this are like spammers. They are not interested in how many say no, as long as enough say yes. They will just start dialing and get as many as possible.

    If they get many from a large ISP that is more likely because they are a large ISP and not anything else. People who are with the smaller ISPs are smart enough to just hang up.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  2. Re:Please Please Please by SternisheFan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Tell me it was that god damn MyFuckingCleanPC (a.k.a. MySlowPieceOfShitPC) company that got busted...

    PULLEEEZZZZEE!

    "The fake 'scareware' programs included WinFixer, WinAntiVirus, PopupGuard, WinFirewall, InternetAntiSpy, ComputerShield, PC SuperCharger and ErrorSafe," http://www.esecurityplanet.com/malware/ftc-wins-163-million-judgment-against-scareware-marketer.html

  3. Re:Another story on this (plus, a trick they pull) by bmo · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's legitimate software, as is Teamviewer, a related remote access and desktop sharing tool.

    http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx

    Remote tools like this are used every day by remote sysadmins. The scam was to get you to install it yourself so they could connect from their end, take your banking information, and clean out your accounts. It looks like the reason why they picked Amyy was because the license fee for "unlimited simultaneous connections" is relatively cheap ($99 for top tier) compared to Teamviewer's rather expensive license for unlimited connections - $1499.

    And then through the remote tool, they would make your machine unbootable when everything was done. There have been people who have let these guys run loose in a VM to find nothing, only to watch them start disabling services and delete system files.

    Teamviewer, Amyy, other remote access/desktop sharing tools are third parties to all of this and aren't part of the scam.

    --
    BMO