My sister-in-law answered her phone today to find what had to be some sort of hacker on the other end.
“Ma’am, you’ve been downloading infractions that will result in the loss of your computer if we don’t help you. All I need is for you to hit the windows key and type in…”
“WHAT?? Who are you, exactly and why would you know what I download?”
“Because we’re from Microsoft and we know what you download”.
By this time I was on the other line with her, assuring the poor woman that her software IS legal and to get his particulars. She was in something of a tizzy.
When asked for his number so she could verify his identity, he hung up. I told her that if he calls back, tell him to go fark himself. Freaking hacker.
NOW. I want to know what that string would reveal about her computer. She thinks it was RENVTWR but that yields no results in a net search.
Be careful out there!
Wow scary.
It probably somehow sends the personal info from the computer which possible could contain passwords to bank accounts and such.
I don’t know…
Hubby can’t find any strings that even vaguely match what she thinks he said… but I can’t believe she was ready to just type in whatever a stranger said into her PC! LOL!
It wasn’t the string, it was him trying to convince her to let him connect to her computer. The character string means nothing. He reads it to her, she says “it doesn’t work” yada, yada, yada. Eventually he says, “to make this easier how about you let me on your computer so I can see what’s going on”.
Once he does that – it doesn’t matter what crap he has her type, he has control of her machine and can upload any kind of trojan he wants. Keystroke loggers, bots, you name it. I’ve heard of this happening a few times. It’s a bit more labor intensive than running a script and the person doing it has to really want to interact with the victim. Freaky and weird.
Oh, DUH! I just didn’t snap to that, but you’re right, of course.
I’ll let her know what was going on so it doesn’t happen again, thanks!!
:thumbs: