Cyber security related phone scam

Hi All,

I was cooking dinner last night and the phone rang, straight away I was suspicious as that is when these types of calls usually happen.

I answer, "Hello" and there is silence on the end of the line, I say again "Hello", this time I here a click and I know what is going on but decide to stay on the line out of curiosity.

In a heavy sub continent accent I hear "Hello Mr <My Surname>, my name is" ..pause.. "Dan Smith, I am from XXXX Technical Support, we are partners with Microsoft"
I say "Oh Yeah, what can I do for you"
'Dan' - "Do you be lucky enough to have computer at home sir?"
Me - "Yep sure am, I am living the dream here"
'Dan' - "Oh that is good sir, Mr <my surname>, we have received reports from the 'Internet Router System' that your computer is producing suspicious traffic and infected with lots of viruses"
Me - "Really, that sounds bad. Question for you though, if you had to ask me if I have a computer, how can you then tell me that my computer, which you didn't know about, is showing signs of having all these viruses"
'Dan' - "Oh Sir, I am telling you that this is really bad, your computer has lots of viruses and and is very badly infected, however we at XXXXX Technical Support can help you out"
Me - "Well Dan, sounds to me like this is a scam and you are full of sh!@, unfortunately for you, you have called the wrong person here, I suggest you p!5s off and call the next person on that list of yours" and then I hang up the phone.

I thought that if this scam was properly targeted it could be successful against people with no idea, it is the phone version of the fake antivirus scam. Thought I would share it as it is praying on people's computer security fears.

If they used perhaps the name of a large ISP (instead of Microsoft) then they could be more successful, if they said they were from my ISP, I would have at least thought twice before I told my sub-continent friend "Dan Smith" to get lost.

As background I am in Australia and I have received about 3 of these calls in the last 4 days.

cabby80

lol, I must say that I haven't had this type of call. I can imagine that it can catch quite abit of people.

Any idea what the next step would have been.

I was cooking dinner, I couldn't be bothered following it through.

I guess they would have either:
1. Asked for Credit Card details and email address to send you the 'latest and greatest "Virus Remover" - which would of course been a trojan itself
2. Asked for your IP address, username and password so they could access your computer remotely and "fix" it for you.

But to be honest I am only guessing here I don't really know.

cabby80

It appears I was just a "lucky" person who was early on their list of calls.

This link has more details on how the call goes and what happens if you don't tell them off...

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/...0630-zm8i.html