New “Trusted Information” Scams

The internet and low-cost international support providers are enabling a new generation of cyber scammers and hackers.

For the past few years, many offshore factories have been running night shift runs of popular products, introducing unofficial clones and knockoffs that are identical to the officially branded goods. Manufacturing firms have simply been unable to control outsourced staff in those remote facilities.

Similarly, when IT firms and PC manufacturers outsource support to offshore firms with low labor costs, they’re taking a chance that protected data may fall into malicious hands. We’ve received reports of scammers targeting tech support customers with a complete set of personal information, including service tags or serial numbers. The most likely source of these data breaches would be technical support staff in call centers. During the day, they work as subcontractors for popular computing brands. At night, they share information amongst other scammers and work together to trick customers into thinking subsequent support calls are legitimate and that they need to allow access to their computer. Once they install their software, they may pretend to fix the computer, and won’t hesitate to bill your credit card for the hours spent. The most malicious scammers install will ransomware that may pop up after several days or weeks.

If you get called at home by unknown people claiming to be tech support and they claim they need access to your computer, hang up the phone. ONLY give out personal information if you have initiated the call and properly looked up the main company number yourself on the company’s main website.

See Also : “Infoworld : Train Your Users To Beat Phone Scams”