My first clue that something was amiss was that the caller id information was blocked. I sometimes receive calls for help from organizations that block their outbound caller id information so I took the call. You should never click a link in an email, right!? Just like this is true, you should never trust that someone calling you reporting to be with “Tech Support” is actually that. If you ever get a call you are not sure about, politely tell the agent you are not comfortable and that you will call them back. Any reputable company’s agents will accept this.. My next clue was that they did not identify themselves with a particular company. Any reputable company will always make sure their agents clearly identify themselves. I did my best to play along with the caller. I told him I had a number of computers in the house and asked which one was the problem. His answer was that it was the one running Windows 10. I asked him again which of the two in the house he needed me to be on and he said he could help me from any of them.
The fun part came when I asked him how much this service was going to cost. His response was that he would need to connect to my computer before he could determine the cause of the problem. he said, “If it is a minor problem we will fix for free. If it is major problem, we will see.” Being in this business I know that there is no charge for the service because he is going to steal my money. I could not hold out any longer and asked him for the hostname of the computer he needed to connect to. Of course, this was enough information for him to know that he had not gotten a mark on this call. I received an abrupt F* You! and the call was ended.
This type of attack is particularly troublesome because it is effective. This is why it is important to get the word out about the dangers of the internet. This party wanted to accomplish one of a few things. Chances are that he would have me go to a website that would give him access to my PC either obviously (like you may have seen a legitimate support technician control your PC where you can see the mouse bouncing around without your help) or by having you visit a site that attempts to simply exploit flaws in your version of Windows or the software on it. In either of these cases, he would have installed software that either ran quietly and worked to steal any information that crossed this computer. This could include my personal information for use in identity theft or my card numbers or bank information for direct theft. The other possibility is that he would install ransomeware. This class of malware runs in the background encrypting all of your files. When it has made sure all of your data is locked up, it tells you that your files have been encrypted, that the criminals have the keys and, for a variable sum of money, you can get the keys and your files back.
Please do me a favor, whether you hire me to do the work or not. Make sure you are running some form (preferably multiple forms) of anti-virus and anti-malware software. I recommend Bitdefender and also Malware Bytes. There are free versions of these pieces of software for home users that have some limitations. For business users, I recommend the paid versions. The other favor I want is for you to make frequent backups. I can attest that a good backup will save you from having to succumb to this extortion. If you want help with any of this, I would love the opportunity to work with you.