When a Fake AV Scammer takes control of your machine

In the last couple of years there has been one form of fake antivirus scam that has become a very organized business enterprise. It consists of cold-calling individuals and informing them their Windows computer is infected with malware.

Usually the person on the other end of the phone presents themselves as some kind of Microsoft partner. All they want to do is help fix your machine, which of course involves them taking control of it remotely and squeezing some money out of you.

I have been called on several occasions by these companies attempting to take control of my machine. In some instances I keep them on the phone for a while to waste their time, but I have never allowed them access to my PC.

Noah Magram, principal software engineer at security vendor Sourcefire, also got called while at home by a fake antivirus company. He decided to see exactly what they do when a person grants access, only he gave them access to a virtual machine so as to keep his PC secure.

As you can see from watching the video above, this is a complete scam. They try and get you to purchase a year of protection for some fake security software on a website they load on your machine. At the same time the person logged into your machine is busy disabling Windows services to leave your PC in a broken state. This is just a panic measure to get you to pay.

The best thing you can do when one of these companies calls is try and get their company name and log the phone number. They are clearly breaking the law and with such information it is at least possible to complain about the company to the authorities in your country.

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