subject: Cold Calling Scam [print this page] Cold-calling criminals posing as IT-support staff are tricking thousands of people into handing over money and installing malware. Almost one in four people in the US has been targeted this year by a new Scareware scam that involves cold calling, according to a recent research.
Criminal gangs claiming to be from an IT helpdesk have phoned millions of surfers to tell them they have a problem with their PC. Victims are then sold fake anti-virus software - known as Scareware' - and are tricked into giving crooks their credit card details and access to computers and personal files. During the summer, the e-crime unit shut 19 websites run by criminal gangs operating this scam. But the above surveys new figures show that the problem is still prevalent and the e-crime unit recently uncovered gangs employing up to 300 staff to cold-call victims. The research says that one Eastern European criminal operation made over $3.5m in a year.
The cold-calling scams have managed to fool people because the perpetrators claim to represent reputable companies, such as Microsoft. This can sound very convincing, especially when the cold-caller mentions that the victim's name and address have been given to them by their ISP. The victim is then told that they can see the viruses on their PC by selecting the Windows Event Viewer.
The Event Viewer logs all the events that happen on a computer. Every time you load a program or click an icon or image, the Event Viewer records it. Sometimes, if these actions don't work or there is a problem with them, an error" gets recorded in the log. This doesn't mean that the PC is necessarily unstable - it could simply relate to something insignificant such as ending a search before all the results are shown.
The cold-calling scams have managed to fool people because the perpetrators claim to represent reputable companies, such as Microsoft. This can sound very convincing, especially when the cold-caller mentions that the victim's name and address have been given to them by their ISP. The victim is then told that they can see the viruses on their PC by selecting the Windows Event Viewer.
The criminal uses this seemingly worrying list of errors to convince the victim that the computer is infected and they need to buy anti-virus software. The victim is then charged $25 to have Scareware downloaded onto their computer. The PC is then connected to a Botnet that sends spam and spreads malicious software remotely. In some cases, the caller remotely locks the computer and demands more money to unlock it.
