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Hack or just a coincidence?

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Viowithcrailtap

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 12:13PM

This has happened to a friend of mine who can't access the internet now because of this problem:

My friend had a phone call from a guy claiming to be from Microsoft (to him it sounded like an Indian call centre - no offence meant by that he couldn't understand the guy very well).

The guy ("from microsoft") read out a long number that was unique to his laptop. Then he told my friend that he had quite a lot of problems on his laptop and then the guy on the phone managed to bring up a box on the laptop screen showing all these "problems".

The guy on the phone said that to fix all these "problems" it would cost my friend £85 to have all the problems solved or he lose everything on his laptop.

He is now locked out of his laptop and can't get on it with a configuration code.

When he loads up his laptop it loads up a black screen a box (that looks like it's from windows 95, but his laptop has windows 7 as the main OS) which asks for this code.

The strange thing is that he received the phone call on his house phone and they knew his full name.

Is this a strange situation or does this happen when you've done something you shouldn't have?

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Chronos the 2nd

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 12:25PM

This is an old old scam and I am really surprised that your friend has not heard of it. Easy enough to get names and addresses these days.

But that aside providing your friend did not download anything the 'Microsoft' guy asked him to or allow him access via some remote software then it looks like an unfortunate coincidence.

So we will need to know if your friend did anything the guy wanted him to do.

By the way I could go on any PC in the land and bring up a box, usually Event Manager and show you what looks like problems, most of these are no big deal but I admit can look a bit daunting, with their red/yellow triangles, to the less informed.

So if you can provide as much info as you can we might be able to get your friends PC back up and running.

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Viowithcrailtap

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 12:54PM

He said he doesn't remember if he downloaded anything or not but the guy did ask him what anti-virus he had and he didn't have any and he's not sure if he told the guy on the phone he didn't have any.

I thought the box thing was pretty simple. I asked him if it looked like task manager and he said yeah.

By the way, are you stalking me Chronos? (You seem to be the only person answering any of my posts)

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hiwatt

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 1:35PM

then the guy on the phone managed to bring up a box on the laptop screen showing all these "problems". Sounds as if he's allowed the guy remote access so he has most likely installed some malware.Can your friend get into safe mode(by tapping f8)and uninstall any programs that shouldn't be there then run malwarebytes or whatever antivirus he has installed

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Ian in Northampton

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 1:46PM

hiwatt: that might have got lost in translation, so to speak. When they called me, the guy talked me through how to look at Event Viewer - he didn't actually do it himself.

Viowithcrailtap: you should be so lucky. It's the people Chronos doesn't answer that I feel sorry for... :-) I'm hoping it is just a coincidence: in all the many instances I've heard of this particular scam, I've never known the scammer to actually screw the machine - it's always been about getting the money.

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Viowithcrailtap

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 1:56PM

I thought it would be something about the money.

The guy on the phone did everything his end, my friend didn't do anything on the laptop. My friend was shocked that the guy on the phone accessed his laptop without my friend doing anything.

Chronos has been a fantastic help to me with my first tower (really knowledgeable). I feel quite lucky to have Chronos replying :)

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tullie

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 2:00PM

To operate a computer without AV is asking for trouble.

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hiwatt

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 2:04PM

I'm confused?Who am I speaking to?Ian in Northampton or Viowithcrailtap?The following is a quote from Viowithcrailtap

The guy on the phone did everything his end, my friend didn't do anything on the laptop. My friend was shocked that the guy on the phone accessed his laptop without my friend doing anything.

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johndrew

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 2:04PM

You could try running the AVG Rescue CD (it's free) it may help the instructions for use also may give some assistance. There is also the Ultimate Boot CD or the System Rescue CD which will allow access to files on the hard drive and may permit a manual repair. There is also some assistance offered by the Microsoft Community/Bleeping Computer which may get you out of trouble.

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alB*

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 2:07PM

First thing is turn off the wi-fi on the laptop ...alB

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Woolwell

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Posted March 13, 2013 at 2:09PM

I hope that your friend doesn't do any on-line banking or use his credit card and store the details on his pc.

Probably needs to change e-mail passwords.

He got remote access and I suspect that your friend inadvertently permitted it. With remote access most things can be viewed hence my first para.

I wonder if a variant of the police virus has been installed and therefore the black screen asking for a code. Is there a demand for money to provide the code?

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