Right now, you could be seconds away from fielding a phone call from a polite-sounding Indian national, who tells you they are from Microsoft or some other tech company and that your PC is full of viruses.
They will very kindly offer to sort it all out for you. But only after you give them full access to your PC. And sign into your PayPal account to make payment with them watching.
If you’re any kind of tech-savvy, the hackles on the back of your neck should be standing up by now. This isn’t standard practice for any tech company, anywhere; just like your bank will never contact you by email to ask you to verify your contact details, so too won’t big-name companies like Microsoft contact you by phone to inform you of your PC’s virus status.
It would constitute a privacy violation at the very least, and that’s the sort of thing that would get a big company into hot legal water, and something they actively avoid.
Clearly, then, these people are neither from Microsoft (or any affiliate company), nor interested in clearing your PC of viruses. No, what they want is unfettered access to your PC so they can steal your data, gain access to your bank accounts or install what’s known as “ransomware” on it.
Ransomware is particularly terrifying – it literally lets the bad guys hold your private data to ransom and demand a fee to unlock it. Some ransomware is easy to get rid of, but others uses professional-grade encryption to lock you out of your own files, leaving you with only two choices: pay, or lose your data. It’s a dirty, dirty business.
If these phony tech support specialists get their way, you could be seriously out of pocket, your identity compromised or your valuable personal data locked away.
So to help you out, we’ve prepared this very quick How To that will ensure you won’t ever fall victim to the scheme.
There’s only one step, and it’s very easy: when your phone rings, and someone on the other side says your PC is full of viruses, no matter what accent they have put the phone down. That’s all there is to it.
Don’t engage them, don’t try to outsmart them, don’t get outraged, don’t tell them you’re tracing the call CSI-style, just hang up. Should they phone again, hang up again. Repeat as necessary, they’ll eventually get the message. Or if you wish, you can add the number they called from, into your ‘Blocked Number’ list.
Spread the word, tell friends and family what you’ve just learned here, and with enough uptake we can convince these crooks to take a long walk off a short pier.
[Image – CC-BY-2.0/Don Hankins]
