Windows Phone Call Scam

[NozSpark]

Someone that I know (elderly) fell for the Windows phone call scam the other day and effectively handed over an undisclosed amount to the scammer and gave them remote access to their PC.

Now obviously the money is gone (which for them is both annoying and embarrassing) but is there anything else that they have to be careful of due to the remote access?

 

[Blue Duck]

Can you go round and tighten up the security on the computer? If it was the most common of these scams they would have used a free program to gain access remotely but others will infect the computer and hold it to ransom.

My Dad also got done with this cost him£250!

 

[NozSpark]

My neighbour is going around sometime soon, they are not going to use the PC in the mean time... They have a kindle fire that they use..

I'm just more concerened about the chance that they've had their personal/banking/login details "cloned" (for a better word)

 

[Blue Duck]

They can only make their bank aware they have been compromised and to look out for unusual transactions. I had this when my card was cloned on a tesco cash machine

 

[Steve3948]

I would format and reinstall OS for sure, they may be in through the back door, so when they use keyboard strokes for anything they will be handing out information.

 

[NozSpark]

That's one of my thoughts TBH Steve

 

[Marvo]

Yep, take the PC off any network and wipe the partition and reinstall from scratch. There's literally dozens of exploits that could be hidden on the PC if someone has had full remote access with Admin privilages. Change all passwords including banking, any website login p/words, router passwords, hotmail/gmail etc etc. If they have a home network I'd certainly check every pc in isolation for malware, rootkits etc and if you want to be absolutely sure you should reinstall all of them as well. If I was given 15 mins of remote access to someones PC I'd have every machine on their network plus the router.with a backdoor and I'd be in posession of every conceivable password. With a security breach as serious as this you have to assume the worst.

 

[Ciatell44]

Like the previous posts said, the first thing that you have to do is break the connection, make sure that there is no way for them to contact your computer. This can be done by just unplugging the cable. That is going to give you the time needed to fix your computer or get help online.