Telephone scam and gullible family members

[Xonticus]

Here is one of the worse ones......AntiVirus AntiSpyware 2011

I've gotten something very similar to that and it's a pain in the butt to get rid of. It locks up all of your other anitvirus programs and keeps bombarding you with endless pop-ups regarding an unknown "virus" and tells you to buy their software to get rid of it. Really irritating. But safe-mode and scans blissfully get rid of it.

I've seen something similar to that in IT. I think it was called Security Tool. Constant popups, wouldn't let you access the internet, a virus scanner, or malware/spyware programs. Absolute pain in the ass to remove.

I got this one so badly, that there was no possible way to remove it. It had crept into every corner of my hard drive in a matter of a day or two in trying to remove it. I had never seen anything with such tenacity. One of the things I learned that had helped cause this was in windows 7, leaving UAC settings bare minimum. I think it spoofed itself as an automatic java update, and crept onto my pc without me even knowing. I ended up wiping the hard drive and doing a fresh install.

Anyways, yeah I've heard that these scammers are getting more ballsy than ever just to get a CC number. I hate to say it, but those scammers had a weak plan; they took too long to try to get the info. The longer they try, the more suspicious people get. If it were me, I would have... never mind

[alienjesus]

Here is one of the worse ones......AntiVirus AntiSpyware 2011

I've gotten something very similar to that and it's a pain in the butt to get rid of. It locks up all of your other anitvirus programs and keeps bombarding you with endless pop-ups regarding an unknown "virus" and tells you to buy their software to get rid of it. Really irritating. But safe-mode and scans blissfully get rid of it.

I've seen something similar to that in IT. I think it was called Security Tool. Constant popups, wouldn't let you access the internet, a virus scanner, or malware/spyware programs. Absolute pain in the ass to remove.

I got this not long ago, suspiciously enough after recieving my laptop back from a computer repair shop. Needless to say since then I've changed all my passwords for everything (I also deleted all cookies and whatbot before I took it in).

It is a bit of a pain to get rid of, for me it disabled Task Manager, all internet browsers besides internet explorer, downloading programs from the internet, my antivirus, my firewall and my anti-malware program. Luckily, unlike some version I've heard of, it hadn't managed to prevent me getting into safe mode.

If anyone gets it, I recommend downloading a program called rkill from the internet. It disables the effects of the virus allowing you to actually run Malware Bytes or whatever to get rid of it. It worked great for me. I hear theres a version of the bug that can detect Malware Bytes being run even if you rename all the appropriate files, so the rkill program is probably a real help in cases like that.

[Incognito D]

I honestly don't know how anyone could fall for something so incredibly stupid.

Maybe if people were to wise up, scammers like this wouldn't be able to prosper. Who the hell provides credit card information to a complete stranger through a random telephone call?

Neither can I. I'm still kind of in shock that my own brother was that stupid. At least he didn't provide any card information though.

In his defence, it was my Mum that answered the call - and we all know what mums are like when it comes to technology in general.
This meant that my brother got a second hand story off my Mum about how someone had phoned to fix the computer - and we had been having problems the day before, which made them think that my Dad had arranged for an IT guy to call.
You can almost start to understand why he fell for it, although downloading a program and running it at the request of a complete stranger, as well as letting him take outside contol of the machine, is still completely ridiculous and makes my blood boil just to think about!

Going to run a Spybot check tonight and request a new IP address from my ISP.

[Hobie-wan]

Combofix is also useful if you get garbage on your PC. I was skeptical at first, but it helped me get stuff clean without a reformat.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofi ... e-combofix

[Haoie]

Whoa, I guess even scams can be, hmmm, 'personalised'.

I guess this has a higher rate of return than sending out a billion spam messages.