Beware of ‘Microsoft’ phone scam

A number of Maltese people have claimed to have received anonymous calls from fake Microsoft-certified technicians in the past week but none of those who spoke with MaltaToday fell victim to the scam.

The scammers, the sources said, have a foreign accent and mumble something about the company they are calling from and proceed by saying: "We are noticing errors on your Windows operating system, please check your computer. We are Microsoft-certified technicians and form part of the support team from a Sliema base."

The bogus caller insists there's a "virus in the area and that your computer's hardware cannot cope with the virus" and offers support. He persistently asks you to switch your computer on for a starter, hardly giving you time to figure out what's actually going on and at times the line sounds dead for a few seconds.

One source said that he asked the anonymous caller for his call back number. The caller gave him a number beginning with 00343 but mumbled the last two or three digits.

One victim who was fast to realise they may be hackers said: "The so-called Microsoft technicians said they would help get rid of the virus on my computer. How they knew my computer had a virus I couldn't understand and I don't know how they even got my number in the first place.

"The caller said several computers in the area had the same problem and that the computer's malware could not keep up with the virus. I replied by saying I had no proof they were certified partners of Microsoft but in the meantime still led me to a Microsoft web page to show me who they were.

"I was so close to letting them access my computer to solve it but then I googled 'Microsoft received anonymous call' while they were still on my house phone. It was then when I confirmed it was a scam so that these hackers can get information from your computer."

The victim immediately smelt a rat and told the caller he would inform the police and the caller immediately hung up.

The aim of these scams is to gain access to your computer and steal as much data as possible, especially stored information related to banking. Furthermore, they also try to assist you in downloading a programme which could help them hack your computer.

If they succeed in convincing you to keep talking, you'll be directed to your computer and asked to open a program called "Windows Event Viewer". To the average user, it looks like a troubling and long list of errors, some labeled "critical".

"Yes, that's it, this is what virus is doing to your computer" says the caller. "Now let me guide you through the steps to fixing the problem."

You're then sent to a website and told to download a program that hands over remote control of your computer and the caller "installs" various "fixes" for the problem.

Since Microsoft doesn't normally ring people up, the repercussions of falling for such a scam is that you would have handed over every bit of data from your personal computer.

This scam has been going since 2008 and apparently is being run from call centres based in India, by people believed to have access to sales databases from computer and software companies who seem to be using phonebooks to get names to call.