Scammers posing as Microsoft Tech Support

The latest http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowssecurity/archive/2011/06/16… Microsoft Security Blog dated June 16, 2011 … scammers… are now attacking us through our phone. Posing as Microsoft tech support, they gain personal and financial information by instructing you, their victim, to setup and allow remote access under the guise of removing computer threats.

The Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Team did a survey of the involved area and discovered that out of 7000 people, more than 1,000 had received this type of call. Of the 1,000, 234 fell for the scam and followed the instructions. Of those, 184 actually lost money to the crooks. This means you have a 1 in 7 chance of being called. How do you like that for a phone campaign?

A problem this big requires that you be prepared ahead of time in order to avoid losing your hard earned cash. It requires only one rule and I’m putting it in bold below. Follow this one rule and all attempted phone scams are stopped dead.

#1

Never trust unsolicited calls. If someone calls and claims to be from Microsoft, your bank, your credit card company, or even your utility company, always call them back. You can use a case number or extension but only use a telephone number that you have looked up yourself.