Beware Fake Microsoft Tech Support Calls

Yesterday, I encountered a fraud scheme first hand that was new to me.  I'd heard of it but I've been in the PC business for over 25 years and never experienced this before.

I was making a rare home PC support call as a favor to one of my corporate clients.  A member of his family was doing the company bookkeeping from home and had reported that their computer was running "slow and funny" so I stopped by to check it out.

As expected, it had some malware and a bunch of "Free" toolbars on their browser.   As I was removing them and cleaning up the system, the phone rang.  When the client answered the phone, the caller identified himself as a Microsoft technician calling because the clients computer was broadcasting error messages that he wanted to help them fix.  The client handed me the phone to let me take over the conversation and playing along with the caller, we determined that "all he wanted to do was help us fix our computer".  All we needed to do was go to a web site and click on a link that would let him fix the PC and "Of course, there would be no charge!"

That action would have allowed that caller access to the client computer to extract whatever information they wanted and install whatever malware they chose to use.

WARNING TO ALL READERS!  MICROSOFT DOES NOT MAKE UNSOLICITED SERVICE CALLS!  They don't sub-contract with anyone that does either.  This was a fraud attempt, pure and simple. 

In this instance, the caller had an Indian accent but that may not always be the case.  This scam has been going on for years and is often traced back to India but others have tried it was well so keep in mind legitimate technicians do not make unsolicited service calls.