Repair man Scam

We have been getting quite a number of calls in the office from ‘Claims Companies’ despite being registered with the TPS (telephone preference service).  We have put the numbers into an automatic rejection list which advises that “this phone does not accept calls from this number”.  Clearly they are not stupid and now call without giving a caller ID.  We have been just putting the phone down on these callers.

On Saturday morning I received a telephone call from a man with a very strong Indian accent; he told me that his name was Mark and he was calling from Microsoft windows technical team. They had become aware that my computer had a very nasty virus.  He went on to say that there were some very nasty people around and to show that he was genuine he was able to give me the windows licence key.   He would be able to fix my computer remotely if I entered a web-site and gave him access to my machine.  The service would be completely free of charge. 

We have had this type of call before so we were not fooled.

I mentioned that we were involved in Computer Security, particularly ISO 27001 Information Security and we wouldn’t give anyone access to our systems let alone someone pretending to be from Microsoft windows technical team.  He seemed unperturbed and kept to his script.  I told him to s - -  off several times before he put the phone down.

Don’t give any details including your name, make of computer, operating system, etc., as this information will be used next time.

Don’t be fooled into giving unauthorised access to your systems under any circumstances.