Well, the nerve of some people. I just received a phone call a few minutes ago from someone with a very strong foreign accent who was obviously reading from a script (I could hear a lot of others in the background doing the same thing), telling me that Microsoft's newest version of Windows has known security vulnerabilities and is in serious need of some patching. I knew where that conversation was going.
Before he could even tell me that he needed to connect into my computer remotely to "fix" my issues (I'm not even using Windows 10 at my home office, by the way), I informed him that I am the owner and CEO of an IT support company, that I knew he was trying to scam me, and that I was going to immediately call the FBI to report him. As soon as I said that, he got very angry and agitated and told me, "Go ahead! You go ahead and do that! You do that right now!". I said fine, that's exactly what I intend to do. He then said, 'Do it! Do it! Do it right now!".
So I said okay, let me switch to the other line, which I did, and left him on hold for 30 seconds. (I did not call the FBI, by the way - very little chance of them doing anything about it, since I didn't actually get hacked)
When I switched back to the phone call so that I could tell him what I REALLY thought about him and the scammers he was working for, he was - not suprisingly - gone, and all I got was a dial tone.
PLEASE be careful and suspicious any time you receive an unexpected phone call from a "tech support company" claiming that they want to connect into your computer. Microsoft doesn't do that, not does any other company that I am aware of. If I had accepted his offer for assistance, he would have provided me instructions for going to a website and clicking on a link to allow him to remote into my computer, and then he would have launched a hidden program in the background that would start searching my hard drive for any and all saved online banking passwords, online shopping accounts (Amazon, eBay, PayPal) while he pretended to be trying to "fix" my computer.
We have actually seen peoples' life savings get wiped out like that. Check out this article from CNET for more examples: https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/fake-microsoft-calls-youre-infected-or-being-hacked/
That's all that I have time to write, but I felt the need to share this story, because it just happened to me, and if I wasn't tech-savvy, I might have fallen for the scam. (But, the accent totally gave him away)
Let's be careful out there!
-PJ
