Believe it or not but the underworld is beginning to get particularly cheeky!
I had a phone call from my parents this afternoon, who are retired, but young at heart! They were called by an off-shore call centre asking them if they have problems with their computer, the person asked questions along the lines of..
- Do you find your computer has become slower than it used to be?
- Is your Internet connection slower than you would like it to be?
- Does your computer take too long to start up?
All of these questions are probably answered by the majority of the population with a resounding 'Yes' – and are asked purely as a way to gain trust and get you to give them access to your computer.
The next request from the operator was…
"Would you like me to log onto your PC and perform a complimentary PC cleanup?"
Thankfully my parents already have a person they can rely on for IT support, but there are many people that don't have that luxury, and the sound of a complimentary clean up could be tempting.
The final out-come of these telephone calls is that the call centre operative will install software to look like it is performing a clean-up, when it is actually scanning your computer and stealing your personal data.
The idea of highlighting this story is to show the lengths that organised criminals will go to in order to access your computer. This is a threat that only really affects home users, but how many of us use our home computer to connect to our office systems?
Once the criminals have this data, it does expose a threat to your business.
For years we have been warned away from 'click that link' or 'downloading that file' – now the criminals are offering to come and do it for you!
If you have any issues or questions regarding security, or if you would like to discuss your company IT systems, please contact us on 02380 386586
