Why certainly we will give you the Administrator password, anonymous person on the phone.

[catsidhe]

Last night, about 19:15-ish

»Ringring ringring«

Heavy Indian accent: "Hello, my name is Florence, from the Maintenance Department of IT. Your computer is putting up a warning on the Internet from a Virus."
Mim: "Oh, really? What sort of warning?"
"Florence": "A warning about a Virus. We--"
Mim: "Yes, but what is the actual warning? My husband's a System Administrator, you see, so he can--"
"Florence": "-- and we can... I'm sorry, a what?"
Mim: "My husband is right here. He's a System Administrator: that's his job. I'm sure you can explain to him what the warning is."

Mim hands the phone to me.

Me: "Hello?"
Silence.
Me: "Hello? Are you there? I can't hear you. Hello?"
»click«

Queue Mim literally doing a happydance from pure glee.




Postscript: Today Mim got another phone call.

Heavy Indian Accent: "Hello this is Peter from Windows¹ IT and we have alerts from your computer."
Mim: "You guys tried this last night."
»click«




[1] there is a Windows computer in the house, as it happens. It's not connected to any networking. Nor has it been turned on in about ten months.

Comments

[rone]

So, what, malware isn't getting installed on its own so spammers and scammers are resorting to old-fashioned social engineering? Good god.

[catsidhe]

It's been going around in Oz at least for some time now. Indian call centers cold-calling around and trying to convince people to give them a RDP connection and the root password to install some "Security" software.

This "antivirus" does more or less what you would expect it to do.

It must be just successful enough, because it's still worthwhile to do it... from, as I said, India.

They're not picky who they call, either. My 89 year old grandmother got one of these calls, only for her to tell them that it was very unlikely that she had a computer virus, given that she had never in her life even used a computer, let alone owned one.

Mim was overjoyed because she had known about these calls for a while, and had been waiting with bated breath for the opportunity to answer the call with "My husband is a professional Computer Systems Administrator: I will pass him the phone so you can try to fast-talk him explain the problem to him."

I was actually hoping they'd try to call my bluff. That would have made for some special fun.

[ideological_cuddle]

It seems to be the replacement for the old stock-dumping scam which used to be run from call-centres in Bangkok.

[etfb]

I want one of these calls! Why won't they call me? Bastards!

[sjl]

Yeah, that would have been amusing. Would have been more fun if she hadn't mentioned the sysadmin thing, and just said, "Oh, my husband handles all the computer stuff, I wouldn't know what to do about it, here, speak with him" - opportunities to lead them on would have been myriad.

But still. I can just imagine the "oh shit" look on the guy's face.

[(Anonymous)]

You may be interested in this recent news article...

http://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/167901121/security/client-security/240001025/security-expert-fools-records-fake-antivirus-scammers.html

Fake antivirus scammers recently got more than they bargained for when they unknowingly dialed the home number of a Sourcefire security researcher who then lured them to an impromptu honeypot and recorded their activity on his machine.

-- mpp