Summer 2014
You receive a call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft Windows Tech Support, advising you that you have a number of problems with your computer. Typically claiming that your system is "infected".
They will ask to gain control of your PC "to check it out, and show your some things".
Please... DO NOT allow them access to your PC!
Your problems will likely be FAR greater if you do.
It is all BS, and a total Scam. MS Tech Support would never make such a call to you.
Following are some links I collected, while doing Tech Service for folks who have been snake-bitten by this.
http://blog.malwarebytes.org/tech-support-scams/
This page offers some very good suggestions and information for how to deal with this situation.
They offer some suggestions for:
Getting Help
http://blog.malwarebytes.org/tech-support-scams/#help
The first two bullet points are basically covered.
I highly recommend that you do the 3rd also:
Change all your passwords (Windows password, email, banking, etc).
I know this is a real pain, but since it seems that you did let them in your system, you should do this, to be safe.
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Immediately following the above section is "Fighting Back"
You may want to consider reporting this to the FTC:
In the US: File a complaint (FTC) | More information about online fraud
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The following sounds alarmingly similar to the experience of some folks I know.
The “Tech Support” Scammers Called HTG (So We Had Fun with Them)
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This is an important link from the MS Safety and Security Site:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/online-privacy/avoid-phone-scams.aspx
... which offers the following as a method to see if your system may be compromised:
Microsoft Safety Scanner
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-gb/default.aspx
It would be a really good idea to run that, just as an extra precaution. (I've never used it before, or heard of it, but it looks like a good idea.)
Your "Malware Protection Software" (Avast, AVG, MS Security Essentials, etc... paid or free) should be sufficient to protect you in most cases. But it can take some rather comprehensive testing to be sure that your system is OK, especially if you gave them access to your PC.
The SNAFU is that ALL of these (software) protection tools can only identify known threats, and typically cannot guard against the unknown. Plus it is beyond my current scope of knowledge and understanding to be 100% absolutely sure at this point that these people cannot again get back into your system... (but I'm working on it).
At this point, in addition to the additional steps and questions here, your choices are basically to:
Have a more experienced tech look at it.
Taking it into a shop may be your best solution.
Just sit tight and see what happens.
If you typically only turn on your PC just while you are using it, it will be really difficult (though not impossible) for these scammers to access your system, should they possibly have installed "back-door" to your system. They may be able to wake it up from a sleep mode however, if you use that feature.
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The big question marks I usually have when someone reports this to me are:
Did they actually gain access to your system?
And if so: What did they take?... Or leave behind?
Most of the time they use Team Viewer (a very legitimate program, that I have used) to access your machine.
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