Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Phone calls from a secret and mysterious IT companies offering installation anti-virus and anti-spyware software
Dear All
Over the last two weeks we have been running a quite interesting discussion about the necessity of buying an extra hard drive to backup your computer data. Today I would like to raise a bit different subject - sudden and unexpected phone calls from companies which offer a service and installation their anti-virus and anti-malware software. Of course they do not do it for FREE.
During my work with home clients around the Haringay from time to time I'm told that there are some companies which are calling individual users, taking remote control of clients' computers without their permission and preparing a little presentation showing how much virus, malware and spyware are living in operating systems. They are very clever and smart guys who know what to show you to destroy your piece of mind and sense of your computer security.
If you are reacting immediately you can provide your credit and debit card details and also pay between £30-£40 for software which in most of the cases is completely useless. Once you've paid them, they do not care any more and you won't be able to find them anywhere. A perfect way of stealing your money.
What to do if you receive this kind of phonecall:
1. Ask them to provide their phone numbers, websites , names and address so it's possible to check if their company exists at all
2. Give yourself some time to think through your decision and never provide your debit or credit card details to pay for "their excellent anti-virus software". At least a day or two so the trial of time would be fullfilled.
3. Whatever you see on the screen during their presentation do not worry and feel scared as every problem with computers can be solved quite easily with extra support of your friend or computer specialist. They try to scare an unexperienced computer users so they will readily pay for security.
Please comment if you've ever come across this problem.
Tags for Forum Posts: scam, telephone scam
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by DrWhams on
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I believe it's only a matter of time before mac users are targetted. There have been instances of cross-platform attacks which download separate payloads for windows and mac, and so it would be really trivial to ask users to allow access via screen sharing or VNC where they would pass full control of their mac over to a third party.
There is a huge danger is of mac users thinking that they are in some way safe because they 'don't get viruses'. As the market share of the platform grows, so will the attacks.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Paul Mac users are already targeted for some viruses (Such viruses are normally not as destructive as "Windows" viruses and are disproportionately small, though. I know how gleeful "Windows" users are when a new Mac virus is announced, but often these are nipped in the bud real quick, or are "proof of concept". On the Mac, its a relatively minor aspect).
But as far as I'm aware, Mac users are not targeted by the subject of Marek's thread. I've received many of these calls and on each occasion, these fraudsters have (wrongly) assumed that I use DOS-Windows.
Having set up and operated a "VNC" system (Apple Remote Desktop) for some time between GB and NZ, I can't agree that its "trivial", certainly not its setting up. Do bear in mind that for more than a decade, Macs have been running on a UNIX-class foundation, with UNIX-level permissions etc.
Anyone who is capable of setting up a VNC system (even including users of DOS-Windows) is likely to know enough about their machine not to fall for fraudsters in this way.
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Clive, the 'based on Unix' thing from a security point of view is an old canard. Windows has been running the same privilege separation for years now. The fact is that Windows, OS X and Unix/Linux are all subject to vulnerabilities and are the subject of regular security updates.
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In order to make standalone, cheap, personal computers in the 1970s, Apple, Microsoft and other stripped out (basically, from UNIX) all the networking capabilities - particularly security. Trust was assumed was there was only a single user for each computer.
In the 1990s, both Apple & Microsoft endeavoured to bolt on on discarded security features, with limited success, but Microsoft did better (via NT), even though it was still something of a compromise.
Apple was obliged to go back to the drawing board and chose to base their next-generation OS on a genuine UNIX-class foundation: mainly BSD UNIX. Since 2001, Mac OS X has been UNIX-class. It is truly UNIX-compliant: POSIX. According to that list, OS X does even better than Linux, another UNIX variant. The widespread DOS-Windows OS doesn't feature in the list.
All current operating systems are subject to vulnerabilities, but some more so than others. It's all grown like topsy and if we were to start afresh – as at some point in the future we probably will, - we'd have a significantly safer equivalent of current internet protocols.
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I don't see your point. There is zero correlation between POSIX compatibility and security against vulnerabilities. A fully patched Windows system is as secure as a fully patched Linux/Unix system. It's more difficult to be fully patched on OS X because Apple have a terrible reputation for acknowledging vulnerabilities and patching them. I think it took 49 days before a patch for Flashback was released, for instance.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bailey on
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Clive, out of interest, why do you refer to wintel system (Windows / Intel architecture) as DOS-Windows?
All current versions of Windows (XP onward in consumer land) are "built on NT technology", and merely have a DOS like command line to revert to, rather than being a GUI which sits on top of a DOS instance.
Anyone running "DOS-Windows" would have an operating system no less than 12 years out of date, and I'm guessing there aren't that many still out there, just a thought but you could save yourself a deal of typing and perhaps improve the accuracy of your terminology by simply referring to "Wintel" or "Windows" operating systems.
I suspect I've opened a can of worms by asking this ;) -
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Permalink Reply by Marek on
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Yes Joe
You have done it. I could already see all our Mac lovers jumping on you
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Being a paranoid technophobe, I have never once typed my main bank account numbers into my computer. For purchases such as Amazon, eBay etc, I have a separate account at a different bank in which I keep a small balance enough to cover such purchases. Thus, if someone ever manages to hack into my computer any losses should be small.
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John you're right to be wary.
A friend was unhappily involved in a work-related dispute. My friend, against my advice, ran a computer running the "Windows" operating system and he noticed some odd behaviour (odd even by Windows standards). He worried he'd been hacked. I mentioned months earlier that "key-logging" software, if secreted into your machine, could render even the strongest, most powerful password quite useless.
He uses Gmail, as I do. I pointed out that with Gmail, you can check the IP addresses of all recent sessions. These should all be the same number (your own), unless you remember checking mail on a different machine at a particular time. Imagine his horror when he realised there was an IP address he couldn't account for. He'd had key-logging software on his machine for a long time, allowing full access to his Windows box by the other person, who had "issues".
It's safest to run a high quality operating system behind a software firewall, behind a hardware firewall, even then, its still possible for the user to get hooked by a phishing expedition.
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