Scamming Is Becoming a Daily Hazard

One of my pet hates is receiving one of those phone calls from someone claiming to be from Microsoft informing me that my computer is sending weird messages to the internet and is possibly infected. If you ever get one of these phone calls please remember the following

• Microsoft never phone you up to say this
• Microsoft doesn't have your phone number (unless you are registered with them and have given it to them)
• They cannot tell that your computer is sending messages to anyone unless they are intercepting and hacking your computer traffic.
• They may show you your event logs, event logs are always busy and invariably show some errors so are not a worry so dont panic

Firstly what do you do?

• Never believe anything they are saying
• Dont worry that they are showing you errors on your pc
• Never hand over any payment
• Never allow them to dupe you into going to a website of any description
• Never talk to them again.

What happens next if you have paid them some money and allowed them onto your pc

• If you pay money, you will never get it back
• They may use your credit card details fraudulently
• They may send you to an infected website that downloads malicious content to your pc

If they put malicious content on your pc it could

• log all your keystrokes (ultimately giving them your passwords and who knows what else)
• Put monitoring software on your computer in order to allow them to gain access to your pc at any time
• Use your webcam to monitor you and your environment so see what valuables you have
• Put malicious ransomeware on your pc which will render your computer useless unless you pay the ransom money to have it removed.

If you have allowed them access
WARNING
Do not use your computer for any banking. Get onto another pc and change your passwords for your banking if you do banking online. Have your computer checked over by a virus specialist.