There have been several reports of victims receiving calls from unknown people claiming to be the technical support from major software companies, soliciting user information and passwords, police said in a news release on Tuesday (Jan 6). Victims would see their computers being remotely controlled or files deleted after being duped.
Police said callers would inform victims that their computers required security or software updates, and victims would be asked to download and install one or more software programmes from the Internet. The victims would also be asked to provide software user account identification codes and passwords to the caller and, in some instances, were instructed to enter some commands into their computers, police added.
“Some victims observed that their computers were remotely controlled or files were deleted after following the instructions of the callers. The callers would then convince the victims to buy additional software by making online payments or by providing their credit card details,” police stated.
Police have the following advice for you to protect yourself from being scammed:
- Ignore such calls. Do not follow the instructions of the callers to install any software for your computer or enter any commands
- Do not make any payment or divulge your credit card and/or bank account details to the callers
- If you had followed any of the caller’s instructions, immediately change your computer’s log-in password and all other passwords associated with your online accounts (e.g. social media accounts and email accounts), especially your online banking and credit card passwords. Where possible, try changing the passwords from another computer other than the affected one
- Scan your computer with a commercial anti-virus software to find out if malware has been installed on your computer
- If you have any information related to this crime, call the police hotline at 1800-255 0000, or 999 for urgent assistance
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
