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Listen To a Microsoft Support Scam As It Happened

Posted by samzenpus on from the can-I-trust-you? dept.

itwbennett writes You know full well that Microsoft will never call you and ask to "access your computer" to help fix a problem. Yet this is a ruse that many unsuspecting computer users fall for and wind up with their machine hacked. CSO writer Steve Ragan, turns the tables during a phone call with a scammer — and he records it all for us to hear. Do yourself a favor and play it for your parents.

5 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. NoScript by DrunkenTerror · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are ninety (90) scripts trying to run on that page.

    1. Re:NoScript by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This always seems to come as a complete surprise to many people, but you can just link directly to an audio or video file. You don't actually need any javascript "playback controls". My OS will take care of that just fine, thank you, and play the file when I click on the link to it. That's what it's for. And it's far more trustworthy than some random site's pile of javascript doing who knows what.

      So yes, zero script is the preferred answer. Like the GP, I disable them locally, so only sites I wish to allow to run scripts can run scripts.

  2. Which computer? by bradvoy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I received one of these calls a few weeks ago. After the scammer informed me that my computer was compromised but he was going to help me solve the problem I thanked him for his help and asked him which of my computers was infected. He seemed surprised by the question and said, "You have more than one computer?" I replied that I have several and surely he must be aware of that because he had just described the extensive monitoring Microsoft was doing. He said it didn't matter which one; just go to one of them and follow his instructions to get rid of the infection. I said that surely I need to go to the one that is infected to clean it, but he again claimed it didn't matter which one I went to. I pushed the point that if his monitoring was able to detect an infection then surely it must be able to identify which of my computers was infected. He started becoming beligerent, almost shouting that it didn't matter which computer had the infection but that I needed to go to one of them immediately so he could help me clean it. At this point I called him a liar and asked how he felt about lying to and stealing from people. He really started yelling at that point, and I just hung up. I haven't heard back yet.

  3. Here is an detailed video (of another scam) by mtbrandao · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://youtu.be/GVQoAlQrnSg

  4. Re:Funny thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Tech support has the victim download TeamViewer to gain access to his machine... TeamViewer has a OSX version as well... I fail to see how this is a windows problem.