Tech Support Scams Explained
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
1,156 words · ~5 min read
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so picture this it's a lazy friday night at home because for the 24th week in a
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row you don't have a date and you're enjoying another fine episode of
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techwiki while idly browsing the web in a separate window and then suddenly
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you get an alarming looking set of error messages and pop-ups telling you that
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your pc which you thought was cleaner than a singapore sidewalk is hopelessly
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infected with dozens of viruses and you need to call microsoft at this
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convenient number right now to fix it and whoa whoa whoa stop right there
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there's nothing wrong with your computer it's a tech support scam
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and not the one where you pay a hundred bucks for someone to come over to plug
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in the SSD you bought from amazon that may be overpriced but at least it's
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legitimate tech support scams usually
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start from inside a browser window or they can come in the form of a phone
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call now over the phone basically someone cold calls you saying that
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they're with a major corporation like microsoft in the Windows support
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department or something to that effect and that they have somehow detected
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serious issues with your pc maybe through a non-existent isp report then
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there's browser-based scams these have been rapidly increasing in popularity
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especially on unlicensed streaming sites for movies and sporting events the way
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these ones work is that many of them try to visually emulate real error messages
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like the Windows blue screen of death and they will often throw in a bunch of
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logos from companies like google and apple to make them look more legit but
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while either of these forms of attack can be disposed of simply by
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hanging up the phone or closing your browser they may try to convince you
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that doing this you know waiting until the morning to get a second opinion from
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geek squad or powering off your system could result in irreparable damage and
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that you have to instead allow one of their technicians
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to fix the issue for you in either case
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once one of these shady characters feels like they've got your attention they'll
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usually have you bring up Windows features that a novice computer user
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might be unfamiliar with for example having them type something simple into
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command prompt and then using whatever comes up as evidence of a
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malware infection or telling them to open event viewer which keeps a log of
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every system message that pops up now the thing is that even a pc that's
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functioning normally will often have a good number of errors in the event
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viewer things as small as a game crash or a slight issue with your network
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connection but the scammer will tell the victim that these error records are
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super dangerous and they will totally wreck their data
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then they'll present their solution downloading remote access software so
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that they can take control of your system to fix
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the problem at some point during this process the scammer will also demand
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payment often by credit card either to renew a software license or fix these
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fake problems the ones who are mostly just interested in stealing your credit
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card details might just kind of puts around for a minute or two and
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clear the event viewer log to make it appear that they did something but the
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more nefarious ones can also use their remote access to install actual malware
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or steal your personal files there have even been cases of scammers deleting the
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data and system files if the victim refuses to pay and even though a common
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stereotype is that it's older folks that fall for these scams more frequently the
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truth is that younger people in their 20s and 30s have also been hit hard by
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this sort of cyber crime due to spending more time online so to avoid becoming a
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victim keep this in mind companies like
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microsoft apple and google will never
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cold call you or email you out of the blue to tell you that there's a problem
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with your pc or your iphone or whatever and if you get a scam error message
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while you're using a browser remember that real errors will almost never
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contain any useful information and they will certainly never prompt you
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to call a specific number and while we're at it real blue screens of death
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take up the entire screen not just your browser window another way
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to tell if you're being scammed is to go back in time to third grade and pay
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close attention to spelling class many of these fake warnings are littered with
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spelling and grammatical errors as well as
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super bombastic use of all caps and many
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exclamation points not exactly the type of thing you'd
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expect to see from a serious multi-billion dollar software company if
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you want to see some real-world examples of what to watch out for we've actually
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linked a page from microsoft down in the video description which has lots of
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useful hints and even screenshots of these sorts of scam pages so if you see
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one the best thing to do is just close your browser unless you want to be like
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Linus media group alumnus nick van burkle and you enjoy spending your spare
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time trolling these people for a bit of
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