I had a customer call me today and said that BellSouth.net called her and said that she had viruses on her computer and that they needed to log into her computer to take care of it. She told them that she had a computer attack and that she would let her computer tech take care of the problem. They asked her who her computer tech was and she said Rob Saunders.
After much discussion, they finally convinced her to go to a website, which she did and type in a code that would give them access to her computer. In the meantime she was
continuing to say that she had a computer tech that would handle this and that they did not need to do this. They then said we have Rob Saunders on the line and then a person, claiming to be me, with a foreign accent said that it was okay. She said that does not sound like Rob Saunders I do not believe you. And then she hung up. She then called me and asked me what I thought.
Just in case you didn’t catch it, they were still logged into her computer after she hung up with them, while she was talking to me.
I immediately logged into her computer, saw that they still had access so I rebooted her computer. After the reboot, the computer was asking for a password to get into the system. This was not a Windows password, this was not a DOS password, just as system password that they “BellSouth.net” person had put on her system so that she could not use her computer anymore.
Fortunately for her she has a full backup so we’re going to reformat her computer and restore the backup and get it back to where she was before all this happened.
Lessons learned from this situation:
- If you have a BellSouth.net email address you could be a target for the spammers. As you know BellSouth.net doesn’t exist anymore, they changed their name to AT&T, but it could be an indication of someone that is older and not is up to date on technology
- The person that this happened to was an older lady, that is not computer literate, which isn’t her fault but unfortunately makes her an easy target.
What should be done in the future:
- If you have someone in your family or someone you know, please have them read this blog and pay attention to situations that they may have in the future.
- If anybody ever calls you, and tells you that your computer is at risk, and that you need to let them log into your computer to check it out, and you do not know who it is, don’t let them log into your computer.
If You Currently Subscribe to our CAP-IT Security program, and you get a call like this, do not let them log into your computer and call us immediately.
Rob Saunders
205-408-0600