The dangerous computer virus scam

Think your computer has been infected with a virus? Think again...

It doesn't matter where you live. It can be London, England or London, Ontario. It could be Queenstown New Zealand or Queenstown, Ireland. Or anywhere else on earth. As long as you have a computer, there are some nasty people out there who want to know its contents.

They're not interested in your recipe downloads - even the scrummily delicious ones from lovefood.com. What they want is your money – and as most of us now bank and use plastic cards online, there's a fortune to be garnered.

One way is hacking. It works but it's time consuming and may not hit targets efficiently – probably better for getting into corporates. In any case, most computer owners now subscribe to anti-virus and malware detection software.

But scamming is like judo. You use the weight and strength of your target (or opponent) to achieve your end. So the best scams involve victims voluntarily giving up details of bank and other financial dealings. By playing on understandably good feelings, you get the result you want.

Very few people still fall for the “bank security alert” scam – the one where they clone a bank's website and ask you to send in your password and other details so they can prevent fraud. We should all know by now that no real bank ever does this.

So they're moving on to the personal approach. Using automated diallers, often in the middle of the night, they call you to “warn” that your computer has a problem.

Infected with a virus

One lovemoney.com reader Paul emailed in and told me: “ I received a phone call this morning from a gentleman telling me that my computer had been infected with a virus.”

Now Paul, a long standing reader of this column, smelt a rat, accusing the caller of being a con-artist. The scammer terminated the call but Paul dialled 1471 and found a London number.

Giving this out, rather than “number withheld” is designed to increase your confidence in this being from a genuine firm.

Paul was told his PC had a virus. Others are informed the computer has 30,000 or more viruses – “beyond the power of your anti-virus software”. Another line is the “corrupted hard drive” that needs to be fixed.

How do they claim to know this? Some pretend they have received an “error message from Microsoft” - this is simply not true as Microsoft (or Apple and other software providers) do not share information gathered from online error reports.

Paul had the right idea. If your computer works and you have up to date malware protection, you should not worry – this is an attempt to scare you. But if you are still concerned, take the machine to a trusted retailer or repairer for a check.

Be on your guard!

What happens if you don't slam the phone down? If you let them talk, watch out. At the least awful level, they'll sell you a £15 a month “maintenance contract”. This will come with a pointless software download to “cure” the problem that you don't actually have.

It may stop there if you are lucky! But as you pay this by plastic, they now have your details so who knows what will happen!

The download could be harmless. You could, however, find yourself with a new virus that will need more expensive cleaning up by the scam firm – or be landed with keylogging software so the caller can see exactly what you type, including passwords. Keylogging software often looks for the 16 long strings of numbers used in credit cards.

It can be even worse. In some cases, they will say they can only “solve” the problem if you allow them to get into your computer using remote access software. This puts them totally in control so they introduce future “problems” that you'll have to pay to cure. And once into your machine, they'll find all sorts of personal details.

You can protect yourself from temptation during these calls – the callers are trained in psychological techniques to encourage you to do what they want - by turning off your internet connection and switching off the computer.

A variation on this is a pop-up or email that says something like "Warning—your computer is infected! System detected virus activities. They may cause critical system failure. Click here to get available software." The software will, of course, be both costly and open your system wide to further attacks.

In a nutshell, calls stating your computer has a problem are ALWAYS scams (unless, of course, it comes from a computer service centre with which you already have a relationship.)

Paul had the absolutely right idea. Put the phone down. Quickly. And hard.

Follow me on twitter @tonylevene1