Phishing by Phone

[davidklecha]

Last night Kathryn Allen posted a rather interesting story about an attempt at phone-based scareware. I’ve been dealing a lot with scareware on the job(s) the last couple of years. This is the kind of stuff that pops up as you’re visiting a website and tells you that your computer has 323 viruses found or something. And you click it and it downloads what looks like a real virus scanner, and shows you all these viruses and malware and such. And you can get rid of them, but only if you pay them $29.99…

Kathryn actually got a phone call from a guy named “Ben” who told her he was from Microsoft and they were proactively trying to help out with error messages that had been reported to Microsoft.

Which, itself should be a red flag for anyone because, typically, you have to tell Windows to send any error reports. And, typically, it tells you in the dialogue box that it won’t send any personal information, so how exactly does Microsoft know to call you…? Well, of course, they don’t. So, as Kat says, if you get a call from Ben or one of his ilk, tell him to take a hike.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.