Rrrrrrriinnnnggg!
"Good Morning! My name is Roger, and I'm with Microsoft Tech Support. Our Security Monitoring team has detected what appears to be a virus on your computer. Have you have any problems lately?"
These scams have been around for years.
- Someone purporting to be a Microsoft employee calls you up.
- There's a 'problem' with your computer.
- Let me connect and take a look.
- Yep, look at all those 'errors' in your logs!
- Let's sign up for some 'protection' service.
These folks can be very convincing. If you let them connect to your computer, the damage is done.
One of my Raleigh customers got this call last week. She was surprised that they could see all these problems with her computer -- the modem for her internet connection had died, and she had been waiting a week for a new one!
She wisely hung up and even called the real Microsoft to report it (you can also call the FTC). Unfortunately, there's not a lot they can do -- most of these calls are untraceable.
Be suspicious with callers you do not know.
Don't let anybody 'connect' to your computer unless you called them and you request it.
Remember, Microsoft will not call you. The only way this happens is if you open an 'incident' with them (which will cost you hundreds of dollars).
