Post by rmarks1 on Nov 28, 2018 23:02:08 GMT -5
Every now and then, I get pop-ups on my computer telling me that I have a virus and that Microsoft can fix it. Obviously a scam. I always have to trun of my computer by pulling the plug and then restarting to get rid of the malware. At least the Indian government is doing something about this now.
Bob
MUMBAI, India — You know the messages. They pop up on your computer screen with ominous warnings like, “Your computer has been infected with a virus. Call our toll-free number immediately for help.”
Often they look like alerts from Microsoft, Apple or Symantec. Sometimes the warning comes in a phone call.
Most people ignore these entreaties, which are invariably scams. But one in five recipients actually talks to the fake tech-support centers, and 6 percent ultimately pay the operators to “fix” the nonexistent problem, according to recent consumer surveys by Microsoft.
Law enforcement authorities, working with Microsoft, have now traced many of these boiler rooms to New Delhi, India’s capital and a hub of the global call-center industry. On Tuesday and Wednesday, police from two Delhi suburbs raided 16 fake tech-support centers and arrested about three dozen people. Last month, the Delhi authorities arrested 24 people in similar raids on 10 call centers.
In Gautam Budh Nagar, one of the suburbs, 50 police officers swept into eight centers on Tuesday night. Ajay Pal Sharma, the senior superintendent of police there, said the scammers had extracted money from thousands of victims, most of whom were American or Canadian.
“The modus operandi was to send a pop-up on people’s systems using a fake Microsoft logo,” Mr. Sharma said. After the victims contacted the call center, the operator, pretending to be a Microsoft employee, would tell them that their system had been hacked or attacked by a virus. The victims would then be offered a package of services ranging from $99 to $1,000 to fix the problem, he said.
Such scams are widespread, said Courtney Gregoire, an assistant general counsel in Microsoft’s digital crimes unit.
Microsoft, whose Windows software runs most personal computers, gets 11,000 or so complaints about the scams every month, she said, and its internet monitors spot about 150,000 pop-up ads for the services every day. The company’s own tech-support forums, where people can publicly post items, also see a steady stream of posts offering fake tech-support services.
Although American authorities have busted such scams in places like Florida and Ohio, the backbone of the illicit industry is in India
www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/technology/scams-india-call-center-raids.html
Often they look like alerts from Microsoft, Apple or Symantec. Sometimes the warning comes in a phone call.
Most people ignore these entreaties, which are invariably scams. But one in five recipients actually talks to the fake tech-support centers, and 6 percent ultimately pay the operators to “fix” the nonexistent problem, according to recent consumer surveys by Microsoft.
Law enforcement authorities, working with Microsoft, have now traced many of these boiler rooms to New Delhi, India’s capital and a hub of the global call-center industry. On Tuesday and Wednesday, police from two Delhi suburbs raided 16 fake tech-support centers and arrested about three dozen people. Last month, the Delhi authorities arrested 24 people in similar raids on 10 call centers.
In Gautam Budh Nagar, one of the suburbs, 50 police officers swept into eight centers on Tuesday night. Ajay Pal Sharma, the senior superintendent of police there, said the scammers had extracted money from thousands of victims, most of whom were American or Canadian.
“The modus operandi was to send a pop-up on people’s systems using a fake Microsoft logo,” Mr. Sharma said. After the victims contacted the call center, the operator, pretending to be a Microsoft employee, would tell them that their system had been hacked or attacked by a virus. The victims would then be offered a package of services ranging from $99 to $1,000 to fix the problem, he said.
Such scams are widespread, said Courtney Gregoire, an assistant general counsel in Microsoft’s digital crimes unit.
Microsoft, whose Windows software runs most personal computers, gets 11,000 or so complaints about the scams every month, she said, and its internet monitors spot about 150,000 pop-up ads for the services every day. The company’s own tech-support forums, where people can publicly post items, also see a steady stream of posts offering fake tech-support services.
Although American authorities have busted such scams in places like Florida and Ohio, the backbone of the illicit industry is in India
www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/technology/scams-india-call-center-raids.html
Bob
