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Just Recorded A Scam Hoax Virus Call | Barb’s Connected World
Previous Coverage
Fake “Virus Infection” Phone Calls – Be Aware Of Them
My Comments
I have previously covered the issue of home and small-business computer users receiving “virus-alert” phone calls and am refreshing this topic with a reference to a recording of one of these calls that a tech blogger had done and published to keep it alive in your memories. These purport to be from Microsoft, a desktop-security software firm or similar entity stating that your computer is infected with a virus.
Typically they require the user to head to a particular Website and either supply email-address or personal banking details or download software of questionable provenance. This leads to the user being at risk of a spam attack, wire-fraud incident or malware / spyware infection.
When you receive these calls, immediately hang up on these callers. You also have to remember that the typical situation with handling computer troubles is that you take the effort to seek help. This help would be provided by a computer-expert neighbour, friend, relative or acquaintance, your business’s IT department (if it has one) or an IT contractor whom you are dealing with.
Sometimes demanding their business-registration or tax-registration details to prove they can legitimatiely do business in your jurisdiction can effectively put them on notice as one friend has done when he received one of these calls.
As well, keeping your computer’s operating system, application software and desktop-security software up-to-date is a wise data-housekeeping practice so you are protected against the malware. I would even extend this to keeping the firmware on your home-network devices up-to-date so as to protect against software exploits that take advantage of bugs in older firmware.
